GaN Talk Blog

The professional audio industry has traditionally prioritized reliability, predictable lifecycles, and long-term product stability when evaluating new semiconductor technologies. As a result, emerging device platforms are typically introduced only after their electrical performance and robustness are well understood.

Against this backdrop, Markus Bätz, CEO and co-founder of Innosonix, made the decision to transition from silicon to gallium nitride (GaN) power devices as early as 2020 - several years before GaN became widely discussed within professional audio circles.

Guest GaN Talk Blog by: Pavel Gurev, Sinftech Rus LLC

This article originally appeared in Bodo’s Power Systems April 2021

In the past few years, gallium-nitride (GaN) FETs have become more widespread in power electronics. Due to their outstanding characteristics, GaN FETs play an increasingly important role in miniaturization of the switching converters with very high-power densities exceeding 100 W / cm³ and more. The efficiency of converters based on GaN transistors can reach 99.5%. Due to the extension of the conversion frequency towards the MHz range, the magnetic components (chokes, transformers) also decrease in size significantly. However, designers face numerous challenges in implementing practical GaN transistor designs. The best family members are presented in wafer-level chip-scale package; the drivers are also quite miniature.