Environmental pressures are creating pressure to quickly adopt newer, cleaner, and more efficient transportation options.  In 2025, 1 in 10 vehicles sold are expected to be a more fuel efficient 48 V mild hybrid.  These systems will require a 48V – 12V bidirectional converter, with power ranging from 1.5 kW to 6 kW. The design priorities for these systems are size, cost, and high reliability. GaN power conversion solutions are perfect to support a 48 V to 12 V bidirectional converter used in these newer models.

A new reference design demo board, the EPC9165, is available to help jump start the design of a 2 kW bi-directional converter.  The EPC9165 is a synchronous buck/boost converter with other supporting circuitry including current sensors and temperature sensor.  The EPC9528 controller board ships with the EPC9165 to incorporate digital control and housekeeping power supply; this board uses the dsPIC33CK256MP503 digital controller from Microchip.

车用48 V/12 V评估电源模块（EPC9137、EPC9163、EPC9165等）采用两相同步降压/升压拓扑结构。边缘连接器和控制卡还设计为两个模块与控制器并联操作，有效地实现四相，从而使额定电流和功率翻倍。使用EPC9137模块的示例如图1所示。