Yes, however unfortunately, using a 5V supply voltage would not open the MOSFETs fully, and not achieve their best Rds (unless the driver contains an internal voltage multiplier, which is unlikely), so I'm just going to have a separate voltage supply for the FETs, triple the 5V PIC voltage and regulate that down to 12V.
I have pretty much resolved the issue at hand, however I have one final question: say I drive the FET gate using, say 12V, can I then get the FETs to switch lower voltages from the 'power' PSU? In other words, can the logic power supply have a higher voltage than the power supply? Is the lower limit related to the FET gate threshold voltage in any way?
In terms of current protection, I am definitely going to have Op Amp based current monitoring, which should one FET fail, the PIC can at least close the others to try to prevent further damage. Also, I am going to have temperature monitoring, however only of the main heat sink, not each individual FET.
While the HIP4082 and similar are indeed very nice, at >$4.50 each, they're a bit expensive for me. (which means I've changed my mind 3 times now sigh, indetermination
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And I'm really hoping I wont end up needing such massive heat sinks