News

100V GaN Transistor in High-Performance Buck Converter Evaluation Board

February 27, 2018 by Paul Shepard

GaN Systems today announced the availability of its 5MHz buck converter evaluation board (GS61008P-EVBHF) using GaN Systems' 100V E-Mode GaN transistor and pSemi's PE29101 integrated high-speed driver. The outputs of the pSemi driver can provide switching transition speeds in the sub nano-second range.

This evaluation board allows customers to benefit from higher switching speeds, enabling smaller peripheral components in a variety of applications including c-dc converters, ac-dc power supplies, wireless power charging, and LiDAR. This product will be showcased at the Applied Power Electronics Conference & Exposition (APEC) in GaN Systems' Booth #1041.

"GaN has a robust ecosystem of quality partners like pSemi," said Peter Di Maso, Director, Product Line Management at GaN Systems. "Working with pSemi, we've been able bring faster switching, higher frequencies, and higher power density solutions to customers so they can leverage the numerous and irrefutable benefits of our industry leading GaN E-HEMTs.

"These benefits come together to reduce power losses, size, weight, and system costs," concluded Di Maso.

GaN E-HEMTs exhibit much higher efficiencies than MOSFETs and exceeds performance in terms of switching speed, parasitic capacitance, switching loss, and thermal characteristics. This evaluation board highlights the high frequency, high speed, and high efficiency performance of GaN Systems products.

(click on graph to enlarge)

Efficiency measurements:

  • VIN=48V, VOUT=12V, FSW=300K-1MHz
    • L=10uH (SER2918-103KL)
    • IOUT=0-12A / 20A (300kHz)
    • TAMB=25°C, forced air cooling (200 LFM)
  • FSW=300kHz:
    • 6% Peak efficiency @IOUT=8A
    • 96% Full load efficiency @IOUT=20A, TJMAX = 100°C
  • FSW=500kHz:
    • 8% Peak efficiency @IOUT=10A
  • FSW =1MHz:
    • 95% peak efficiency @ IOUT=11A
    • TJMAX = 100°C at 10A