GaN Talk Blog

Motivation

The rapid expansion of the computing and telecommunication market is demanding an ever more compact, efficient and high power density solution for intermediate bus converters. The LLC resonant converter is a remarkable candidate to provide a high power density and high-efficiency solution. eGaN^® FETs with their ultra-low on-resistance and parasitic capacitances, benefit LLC resonant converters by significant loss reduction that is challenging when using Si MOSFETs. A 48 V to 12 V, 900 W, 1 MHz LLC DC to DC transformer (DCX) converter employing eGaN FETs such as EPC2053 and EPC2024 is demonstrated, yielding a peak efficiency of 98.4% and a power density exceeding 1500 W/in³.

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a better semiconductor than silicon. There are many crystals that are better than silicon, but the problem has always been that they are far too expensive to be used in every application where silicon is used. But, GaN can be grown as an inexpensive thin layer on top of a standard silicon wafer enabling devices that are faster, smaller, more efficient, and less costly than their aging silicon counterparts.

In January of 2016 I made several predictions for the then-nascent year. Predictions were made for new markets such as wireless charging, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, and advances in medical diagnostics and internet access. Progress in these markets was made on all fronts, sometimes faster and sometimes slower than anticipated. So here we are about to start a new year and, perhaps foolishly I am ready once again to predict the future.

In past postings , we looked at the applications that have emerged because of new capabilities available with #GaN technology. We also discussed the transformational nature of some of these applications in areas like medicine, telecommunications,human-machine interfaces, and the delivery of electrical power itself (wireless power transfer). GaN technology is entering an era similar to the 80’s and 90’s when the utility of technological improvement was apparent across broad commercial markets. Consequentially, consumers will be willing to pay a premium for the life-style improvements enabled by these improvements thereby accelerating growth of GaN applications for the foreseeable future.

The demand by our society for information is growing at an unprecedented rate. With emerging technologies, such as cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT), this trend for more and faster access to information is showing no signs of slowing. What makes the transfer of information at high rates of speed possible are racks and racks of servers, mostly located in centralized data centers.