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
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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
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Silicon power MOSFETs have not kept pace with the evolutionary changes in the power electronics industry, where factors such as efficiency, power density, and smaller form factors are the main demands of the community. Silicon MOSFETs have reached their theoretical limits for power electronics, and with board space at a premium, power system designers need alternatives. Gallium nitride (GaN) is a high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) semiconductor that is adding real value in emerging applications.

EETimes
August, 2020
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Silicon power MOSFETs have not kept pace with the evolutionary changes in the power electronics industry where factors such as efficiency, power density, and smaller form factors are the main demands of the community. The power electronics industry has seen the theoretical limit of silicon MOSFETs reached and now needs to move to a new element. Gallium Nitride or GaN is a highly mobile semiconductor electron semiconductor (HEMT) that is proving to be a real added value in meeting new applications.

Power Electronics News
March 25, 2020
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Alex Lidow is the CEO of Efficient Power Conversion, probably the most prominent advocate for gallium nitride, delivering the first GaN transistor in 2009. After a decade of selling products, DESIGN&ELEKTRONIK editor Ralf Higgelke met him to discuss some of the latest advances in that area.

DESIGN&ELEKTRONIK
February 20, 2020
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Long talked about, wide bandgap gallium nitride-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) transistors are now commercially available. They are being touted for replacing silicon-based MOSFETs, which are turning out to be inefficient for many high-performance power supply designs. Recently, several suppliers of GaN-on-Si-based HEMTs and FETs have emerged in the marketplace, among them Efficient Power Conversion (EPC). To expedite the evaluation of eGAN FETs for power supply designs transitioning from silicon MOSFETs to eGaN FETs, EPC has released several development boards in the last few years.

By Ashok Bindra
Digi-Key Article Library
July 15, 2014
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Alex Lidow, EPC CEO and co-founder, will be presenting results of a newly released family of enhancement mode (GaN®) HEMT transistors designed for high frequency operation into the 10 MHz range. The presentation will also highlight the stability of these devices under radiation exposure making them an ideal choice for high reliability applications.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — March, 2014 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation, the world’s leader in enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN®) power transistors will be presenting at the 39th Annual Government Microcircuit Applications and Critical Technology (GOMACTech) Conference which will be held in Charleston, South Carolina on April 3rd.