The greatest opportunity for Gallium Nitride (GaN) to impact the performance of power conversion systems comes from the intrinsic ability to integrate both power-level and signal-level devices on the same wafer.
The first commercial GaN ICs from EPC appeared in 2014 in the form of monolithic half-bridge devices. As the technology progressed, more complex integration started to appear in the market, such as a product that includes two power transistors and driver circuitry and enables efficient operation up to 7 MHz when driven by a low power logic gate.
Next, in 2020 a monolithic half bridge that incorporates driver and level shift circuitry to create a monolithic power stage was introduced. This IC, the EPC2152, will be followed by a series of monolithic power stage products with best in class performance and application specific features that will usher in new era for power conversion.
In a few years, the merging of discrete technology to integrated circuits will occur. As discrete devices achieve increasingly higher power densities, it will no longer be possible to extract the current in and out of the bumps and bars on the devices. Therefore, integration into small, multi-chip, multi-function integrated circuits will be necessary. It is likely that within the next few years the slow obsolescence of discrete transistors in power conversion will occur and integrated solutions will be the component that designers select when building a power system.
For more information on GaN ICs, download the ebook GaN Power Solutions From Discrete to ICs
Integration in GaN makes your system even faster and smaller!
EPC offers custom level integration to allow users to form-fit their solution. To discuss requirements for a custom GaN solution, contact us at [email protected]
For a complete list of EPC eGaN devices please see the full selector guide .