This is driving me mad, I can only imagine I'm doing something particularly stupid?.
I'm working on PIC based buck and boost converters, mostly for charging Li-Ion batteries in products we build - and while driving the FET gate direct from the PIC via a resistor works (for low-side), the FET doesn't switch 'that' fast, and gets warmer than I'd like. Using an NPN transistor and pull up resistor works for high-side, but even less well than the low side.
So after a quick googling, I added an NPN transistor and pullup, driving a pair of NPN/PNP emitter followers (as shown all over the net, and in application notes), with very little success.
A little scope work showed that the drive from the PIC was a nice square wave, but the wave on the FET was much wider, and the switch-off time was pretty slow.
So I've 'cut back' to just a resistor from PIC to NPN base (dropped it down to 220 ohm), emitter to chassis, and collector to 12V via a 10K - just those three components, nothing else connected.
CH1 (yellow) is the drive from the PIC, first picture CH2 (blue) is on the base of the NPN (a BC337), so either side of the 220 ohm. Second picture is the collector of the NPN, it bears little resemblance to the drive waveform, and is what comes out of the FET when it's all connected. I've shifted the yellow trace up a bit so as to not overlap on zero volts.
Any clues? - I was going to try a 2N7000 FET instead of the NPN - but I haven't got one (they have all disappeared in a box of bits to a guy we sub-contract some construction to - he's an old friend who appreciates the work). So I ordered some from RS last night, and they have just turned up - so I'll try sticking one of those in and see what happens.
I've also ordered some IR2011 8 pin FET high/low drivers to have a play with.