What are the factors impacting gallium nitride’s adoption across a wide range of power management applications? In this article, we will explore the feedback that EPC has received from customers we have visited over the last 13 years that the company has been in volume production.

Power Electronics News
October, 2023
Read article

Battery-powered industrial vehicles such as forklifts, manual handlers, or warehouse automatic vehicles require high-current inverters to drive the electric motors. Gallium nitride technology helps to increase the power capability and simplify the inverter design in these applications.

Bodo’s Power Systems
October, 2023
Read article

Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) is optimistic about GaN despite geopolitical challenges and the changing landscape in the compound semiconductor sector.

DIGITIMES
September, 2023
Read article

Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductor company Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) is taking a fresh stab at the power component landscape, challenging the longstanding silicon hegemony.

DIGITIMES
September, 2023
Read article

Bringing GaN to the final frontier, EPC Space introduced two new radiation-hardened GaN transistors for high-current switching in space-based applications. As the number of commercial satellites continues to increase, designers require more options for space-ready power electronics with improved current handling.

All About Circuits
September, 2023
Read article

As more processing power and more complex loads are placed on-orbit or into deep space missions, it is sometime necessary to parallel two or more power switches. However, conventional power device packages, such as the FSMD-A/B/C/D and their I/O pad provisioning make it difficult to accomplish paralleling these devices in a performance-conscious manner. When paralleled, the gate and source-sense pads on these packages either serve to block the most efficient/shortest interconnect from package-to-package for the drain and source connections or for the gate and source-sense pads. So in parallel configurations, there is always a compromise between optimized drain-source load-circuit performance and gate-source-sense drive-loop performance. This article introduces the FSMD-G discrete HEMT package and explains how the reconfiguration of its I/O pads overcomes these limitations when paralleling GaN HEMTs.

How2Power
September, 2023
Read article

EPC Space has introduced radiation-hardened gallium nitride devices for space-borne power converters and other rugged environments.

Electronics Weekly
August, 2023
Read article

GaN devices offer a plethora of benefits that align well with the demands of the space industry, addressing challenges related to reliability, radiation survivability, and space heritage.

Power Electronics News
August, 2023
Read article

Microinverters and power optimizers are widely utilized in modern solar panels to maximize energy efficiency and conversion. Such topologies and implementations usually require a minimum of 25 years of lifetime, which is becoming a critical challenge for market adoption. Low-voltage gallium nitride (GaN) power devices (VDS rating < 200 V) are a promising solution and are being used extensively by an increasing number of solar manufacturers.

In this article, a test-to-fail approach is adopted and applied to investigate the intrinsic underlying wear-out mechanisms of GaN transistors. The study enables the development of physics-based lifetime models that can accurately project the lifetimes under the unique demands of various mission profiles in solar applications.

How2Power
August, 2023
Read article

As the revolution of renewable energy as well as transportation electrification progresses, the need for residential energy storage systems is increasing. A high efficiency DC-to-DC converter is usually required to exchange energy generated from renewable sources, such as solar panels, with a battery. The fast-switching speed and low R_DS(on) of gallium nitride (GaN) FETs can help save energy by reducing power consumption inside the DC-to-DC converter. This article shows how to design a high efficiency 100 – 250 V to 40 - 60 V DC-to-DC converter.

Power Electronics Europe
May, 2023
Read article

Automotive electronics have gone through several eras of evolution in the past 30 years. From the pure internal combustion engines (ICE) that had mostly mechanical, or engine-driven systems, to the mild hybrid (MHEV) with the addition of electrical motivation, to the fully battery-electric car (BEV). In each of these three eras, the architecture, and even the basic semiconductor components for converting and distributing electrical power changed. This article discusses this evolution and makes some speculations about likely further evolutionary directions.

Power Systems Design
August, 2023
Read article

In this article, Renesas Electronics explains how using a discreet GaN based power supply in the ISLVERSALDEMO2Z reference design for the core offers several advantages for power management in space avionics systems.

Power Electronics News
July, 2023
Read article

Lower-voltage GaN FETs are reducing size, minimizing cooling requirements and improving efficiency.

Lower-voltage GaN FETs (i.e., 100 V) are reducing size, minimizing cooling requirements and improving efficiency for many traditional Si-based power MOSFET applications. In this article, the challenges to repeatably and reliable characterization of the dynamic performance of these devices is discussed. Careful and thoughtful mechanical and electrical design of a customized GaN fixture and test board can overcome many of these challenges, enabling the confident use of these new WBG devices in your power-converter designs.

Power Electronics News
July, 2023
Read article

Transient voltage overshoot is a common phenomenon in GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) under high slew rate switching conditions. The dynamic parametric instability under such stress is a critical concern for GaN applications. This work, for the first time, accurately characterized the evolution of dynamic on-resistance (R_DS(on)) in GaN HEMTs under repetitive voltage overshoot up to billions of switching cycles. The dynamic R_DS(on) increase was found to be the dominant device degradation under overvoltage switching. Such findings were obtained from a high-frequency, repetitive, unclamped inductive switching (UIS) test with active temperature control and accurate in-situ R_DS(on) monitoring. A physics-based model was proposed to correlate the dynamic R_DS(on) drift with the peak overvoltage, and a good agreement with experimental data was achieved. This model was further used to project the lifetime of GaN HEMTs. For 100 V rated GaN HEMTs switched under 100 kHz and 120 V spikes, the model projects less than 10% dynamic R_DS(on) shift over 25 years of continuous operation. This work addresses the major concerns of overvoltage switching reliability of GaN HEMTs and provides new insights of the electron trapping mechanism.

IEEE Xplore
Ruizhe Zhang, Ricardo Garcia, Robert Strittmatter, Yuhao zhang, Shengke Zhange
Read article (IEEE subscription required)

Gallium Nitride (GaN) heterojunction field effect power transistors in the 15 V to 350 V range have shown to give significant advantages over silicon in efficiency, size, speed, and cost in applications such as power conversion, motor drive, and pulsed light for lidar. GaN integration provides numerous system benefits for many high frequency applications. GaN integration is just beginning, and the benefits are assured to increase over time.

Bodo’s Power Systems
June, 2023
Read article

EPC, a leader in enhancement-mode gallium-nitride (GaN) FETs and ICs, delivered multiple technical presentations on GaN technology and showcased applications at PCIM Europe 2023 in Nuremburg. We spoke with the company's Founder and CEO, Alex Lidow, about the power industry and how it's being impacted by GaN devices.

Electronic Design
May, 2023
View video

In this episode of Spirit: Behind the Screen, Spirit Electronics CEO Marti McCurdy chats with EPC’s CEO Alex Lidow and Marketing Director Renee Yawger about the progress of GaN. They discuss GaN’s performance under high radiation as well as the extensive testing, failure modes and device lifespan detailed in EPC’s Phase 15 reliability report. With the full potential of GaN still to be explored and new EPC products releasing frequently, including new half-bridge drivers, low-side drivers and full power stage, GaN is especially useful in New Space and commercial space applications.

Spirit: Behind the Screen
Listen to podcast

Monolithic GaN integration has matured to the point that complex circuits such as a half bridge gate driver with various features can now be realized. This article will cover DC-to-DC and BLDC motor drive application examples that benefit from monolithic half-bridge integration.

Power Electronics News
May, 2023
Read article

Modern solar panels are demanding increasingly higher power density and longer operating lifetimes. Solar applications including power optimizers and panels with built-in microinverters are becoming the prevailing trend for an increasing number of solar customers, where low voltage GaN power devices (V_DS < 200 V) are extensively used.

Bodo’s Power Systems
May, 2023
Read article

Gallium nitride (GaN) transistors and ICs have the best attributes to satisfy BLDC inverter needs. The superior switching capability of GaN helps to remove dead time and increase PWM frequency to obtain unmatched sinusoidal voltage and current waveforms for smoother, silent operation with higher system efficiency

Power Systems Design
May, 2023
Read article