In this installment of the ‘How to GaN’ series we will discuss the 4th generation of eGaN FETs in 48 VIN applications and evaluate the thermal performance of the chipscale packaging of high voltage lateral eGaN FETs.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
December, 2014

Technics is back. Panasonic has unveiled the first new hi-fi products from the highly-regarded brand in 6 years. The new Reference Class system is made up of three components – a stereo power amp, a network audio control player and a speaker system. The amp uses a JENO Digital Engine to eliminate jitter and nip noise in the bud, and Load Adaptive Phase Calibration (LAPC) for flat amplitude-phase frequency delivery. It features GaN for high speed switching while keeping signal loss low, a proprietary digital link input, analog XLR input, analog RCA input, bi-wiring speaker terminals, and a silent linear power supply.

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DesignCon 2015’s Thursday (January 29th) keynote speaker will be Dr. Alex Lidow, CEO and co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC). For most of his career, Alex has focused on improving the efficiency of power conversion in hopes of reducing the environmental impact of energy production and consumption. As an R&D engineer at International Rectifier, he co-invented the HEXFET power MOSFET. The patents from this invention brought in more than $900M. Alex holds numerous additional patents in power semiconductor technology, including basic patents in power MOSFETs as well as in GaN FETs. He recently co-authored the first textbook on GaN transistors, “GaN Transistors for Efficient Power Conversion”. You can catch Alex’s keynote speech at DesignCon 2015 on Thursday, January 29, 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM.

EDN
December 3, 2014
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Practical wireless power systems need to address the convenience factor of such systems. Standards such as the A4WP Class 3 have defined a broad coil impedance range that address the convenience factor and can be used as a starting point to compare the performance of the amplifiers. In this installment of WiGaN both the ZVS Class-D and Class-E amplifiers will be tested at 6.78 MHz to the A4WP Class 3 standard.

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The EPC2101 GaN power monolithic half bridge offers power systems designers a solution that increases efficiency and power density. For a complete buck converter, system efficiency approaches 87% at 14 A, and over 82% at 30 A when switching at 500 kHz and converting from 28 V to 1 V while reducing the board area occupied by transistors by 50% when compared to a discrete solution.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — November 2014 — EPC announces the EPC2101, 60 V enhancement-mode monolithic GaN transistor half bridge. By integrating two eGaN^® power FETs into a single device, interconnect inductances and the interstitial space needed on the PCB are eliminated, resulting in a 50% reduction in board area occupied by the transistors. This increases both efficiency (especially at higher frequencies) and power density, while reducing assembly costs to the end user’s power conversion system. The EPC2101 is ideal for high frequency DC-DC conversion.

Gallium Nitride (GaN) FETS are poised to replace silicon power devices in voltage regulators and DC-DC power supplies. Their switching speeds are significantly faster and their R_DS(on) is lower than silicon MOSFETS. That can lead to higher power efficiency power sources, which is good for all of us. If you're designing power circuits with GaN devices, you need a grasp of the device's switching speed.

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EPC2105 GaN half bridge offers power systems designers a solution that increases efficiency and power density for complete buck converter systems approaching 98% at 10 A when switching at 300 kHz and converting from 48 V to 12 V, and 84% at 14 A when switching at 300 kHz and converting from 48 V to 1.0 V.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — November 2014 — EPC announces the EPC2105, 80 V enhancement-mode monolithic GaN transistor half bridge. By integrating two eGaN^® power FETs into a single device, interconnect inductances and the interstitial space needed on the PCB are eliminated. This increases both efficiency (especially at higher frequencies) and power density, while reducing assembly costs to the end user’s power conversion system. The EPC2105 is ideal for high frequency DC-DC conversion and enables efficient single stage conversion from 48 V directly to 1 V system loads.

In this installment of the ‘How to GaN’ series we will discuss a new family of eGaN FETs that is keeping Moore’s Law alive with significant gains in key switching figures of merit that widen the performance gap with the power MOFET in high frequency power conversion.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
October, 2014

EPC9118 demonstrates size reduction and efficiency enhancement for power conversion readily achieved using high frequency switching eGaN^® FETs for supply voltages up to 48 V or more.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.—October 2014 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) introduces the EPC9118, a fully functional buck power conversion demonstration circuit. This board is a 30 V-60 V input to 5 V, 20 A maximum output current, 400 kHz buck converter. It features the EPC2001 and EPC2015 enhancement-mode (eGaN^®) field effect transistors (FETs), as well as the LTC3891 buck controller. This buck converter design is ideal for distributed power solutions in telecom, industrial, and medical applications.

The market for SiC and GaN power semiconductors is expected to grow at 63 percent CAGR between 2011 and 2017, reaching around $500 million, according to The Information Network, a US market research company.

Compound Semiconductor
October, 2014
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Gallium nitride (GaN) is one of the technologies that could well displace silicon MOSFETs in the next generation of power transistors. As silicon approaches its performance limits, GaN devices conduct better and switch faster. In this short podcast, Alex Lidow talks about the differences between GaN and silicon power devices.

Power Electronic TIPS
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EPC2100 GaN power transistor offers power systems designers a solution that increases efficiency and power density for complete buck converter systems approaching 93% at 10 A, and over 90.5% at 25 A when switching at 500 kHz and converting from 12 V to 1.2 V.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — September 2014 — EPC announces the EPC2100, the first commercially available enhancement-mode monolithic GaN transistor half bridge. By integrating two eGaN power FETs into a single device, interconnect inductances and the interstitial space needed on the PCB are eliminated. This increases both efficiency (especially at higher frequencies) and power density, while reducing assembly costs to the end user’s power conversion system.

On September 3^rd IEEE PELS will offer a webinar by Dr. Johan Strydom discussing the contribution of gallium nitride power transistors to meet the demanding system bandwidth requirements of envelope tracking applications.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.— August 2014 — An Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) expert on the application of gallium nitride transistors in envelope tracking power circuit design will conduct a one-hour webinar sponsored by the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) on September 3^rd from 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM (EDT).

This article presents hard-switching buck converter results switching at 10 MHz and gives a breakdown of the converter losses. It will demonstrate the unmatched high frequency performance capability currently available using eGaN^® FETs and also highlight the current limitations to pushing to even higher switching frequencies.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
August, 2014

Intent on flooding power device markets with GaN-on-silicon FETs, Alex Lidow, EPC, talks to Compound Semiconductor about future market opportunities.

Compound Semiconductor
July, 2014
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Long talked about, wide bandgap gallium nitride-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) transistors are now commercially available. They are being touted for replacing silicon-based MOSFETs, which are turning out to be inefficient for many high-performance power supply designs. Recently, several suppliers of GaN-on-Si-based HEMTs and FETs have emerged in the marketplace, among them Efficient Power Conversion (EPC). To expedite the evaluation of eGAN FETs for power supply designs transitioning from silicon MOSFETs to eGaN FETs, EPC has released several development boards in the last few years.

By Ashok Bindra
Digi-Key Article Library
July 15, 2014
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Superior characteristics of eGaN^® FETs, such as low output capacitance, low input capacitance, low parasitic inductances, and small size make them ideal for increasing efficiency in highly resonant, Rezence (A4WP) compliant, wireless power transfer systems.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.—July 2014 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) today announces the immediate availability of a complete demonstration wireless power transfer kit. The 40 V (EPC9111) or 100 V (EPC9112) wireless kits have three components:

With high-voltage GaN devices close to commercialization, manufacturers can, at last, look forward massive market growth.

Compound Semiconductor
July, 2014
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This installment will address an eGaN^® FET module designed as a way for power conversion systems designers to easily evaluate the exceptional performance of gallium nitride transistors.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
June, 2014

The superior characteristics of eGaN^® FETs, such as low output capacitance, low input capacitance, low parasitic inductances, and small size make them ideal for increasing efficiency in highly resonant, Rezence (A4WP) compliant, wireless power transfer systems.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.—June, 2014 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) today announce the introduction of demonstration boards for wireless power transfer in an innovative high performance topology; Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) Class-D. The EPC9506 and EPC9507 amplifier (source) boards utilize the high frequency switching capability of EPC gallium nitride transistors to facilitate wireless power systems with greater than 75% efficiency.