New Industry Products

TI expands GaN Power Portfolio with Smallest and Fastest GaN Drivers

March 05, 2018 by Paul Shepard

Texas Instruments (TI) today announced two new high-speed GaN field-effect transistor (FET) drivers to create more efficient, higher-performing designs in speed-critical applications such as light detection and ranging (LIDAR) and 5G radio-frequency (RF) envelope tracking. The LMG1020 and LMG1210 can deliver switching frequencies of 50MHz while improving efficiency and enabling five times smaller solution sizes previously not possible with silicon MOSFETs.

With an industry-best drive speed as well as a minimum pulse width of 1ns, the LMG1020 60-MHz low-side GaN driver enables high-accuracy lasers in industrial LIDAR applications. The small wafer-level chip-scale (WCSP) package of only 0.8 mm by 1.2 mm helps minimize gate-loop parasitics and losses, further boosting efficiency.

The LMG1210 is a 50-MHz half-bridge driver designed for GaN FETs up to 200V. The device's adjustable dead time control feature is designed to improve efficiency by as much as 5 percent in high-speed dc-dc converters, motor drives, Class-D audio amplifiers as well as other power-conversion applications. Designers can achieve high system-noise immunity with the industry's highest common-mode transient immunity (CMTI) of more than 300V/ns.

Key features and benefits of the LMG1020 and LMG1210

  • High speed: The two devices' ultra-fast propagation delay (2.5 ns [LMG1020] and 10 ns [LMG1210]) enables power solutions that are 50 times faster than with silicon drivers. Additionally, the LMG1020 is capable of delivering high-power 1-ns laser pulses, enabling long-range LIDAR applications.
  • High efficiency: Both devices enable high-efficiency designs. The LMG1210 offers a low switch-node capacitance of 1 pF and user-adjustable dead time control to improve efficiency by as much as 5 percent.
  • Power density: The integrated feature of dead time control in the LMG1210 allows for reduced component count and higher efficiency, enabling designers to reduce power-supply size by as much as 80 percent. The increased power density of the LMG1020 enables the highest resolution in LIDAR in the industry's smallest package.

TI is showcasing its extensive GaN portfolio and enabling GaN technology in booth No. 501 at the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) in San Antonio, Texas, March 4-8, 2018.

Package, pricing and availability

Prototype samples of the LMG1020 and LMG1210 are now available in the TI store and through the company's authorized distribution network. The LMG1020 comes in a WCSP package and is priced at US$1.79 in 1,000-unit quantities, while the LMG1210 comes in a quad flat no-lead (QFN) package and is priced at US$2.19 in 1,000-unit quantities.