GaN Talk Blog

Discover how BrightLoop Converters reduced the size and cost of its converter while enhancing its reliability with EPC gallium nitride parts.

Learn how EPC’s new demo board, the EPC9176 with its six QFN-packaged GaN ICs allows for more efficient, high-performance vacuum cleaner motors.

GaN-based solutions coupled with digital control and high-performance magnetics can increase efficiency, shrink the size, and reduce system costs for high density computing applications like ultra-thin laptops and high-end gaming systems.

As computers, displays, smart phones and other consumer electronics systems have become thinner and more powerful over the past decade, there is increasing demand for addressing the challenge of thinner solutions while extracting more power out of limited space.

The multilevel converter is an exceptional candidate to shrink the size of the magnetic components and achieve high efficiency in a compact solution. Leveraging the advantages of eGaN^® FETs, such as small size and low loss, further enhances the performance of a multilevel solution. This blog will evaluate the EPC9148, a 48 V to 20 V, 250 W three-level converter using eGaN FETs and digital control which achieves a peak total system efficiency of 97.8% and only 4.1 mm component height.

Power electronics engineers are constantly working towards designs with higher efficiency and higher power density while maintaining high reliability and minimizing cost. Advances in design techniques and improved component technologies enable engineers to consistently achieve these goals. Power semiconductors are at the heart of these designs and their improvements are vital to better performance. In this EPC space blog, we will demonstrate how GaN power semiconductors allow for innovation in the harsh radiation environments of space applications.

GaN power semiconductors offer designers in the high reliability market a sudden and significant improvement in electrical performance over their silicon power MOSFET predecessors. Table 1 compares radiation hardened GaN and Si power semiconductor device characteristics important for circuit designers to increase efficiency and power density in their converter.