New Industry Products

Expanded 100V GaN FET Family for 48Vin DC-DCs

April 04, 2019 by Scott McMahan

Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) says it has enhanced the performance while lowering the cost of off-the-shelf gallium nitride transistors with the introduction of the EPC2053 (3.8mΩ, 100V) eGaN FET. (See image above). This device joins the EPC2045 (7mΩ, 100V), EPC2052 (13.5mΩ, 100V), and EPC2051 (25mΩ, 100V) to offer designers a comprehensive family of 100V products.

The GaN FETs are suitable for a broad range of power levels and price points to meet the increasing demands of 48V automotive, 48V server, and 54V data center applications. Other applications for the 100V family include USB-C, single-stage 48V to load open rack server architectures, precision motor drives, lidar, and LED lighting.

According to EPC, this latest generation of 100V GaN devices increases the efficiency, shrinks the size, and reduces system cost for 48V power conversion.

Alex Lidow, EPC's co-founder and CEO, said, "There are very significant performance advantages gained from GaN in 48Vin conversion and this is a market where growth is exploding for multiple applications, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and advanced high-performance motor drives. In addition, automotive systems are moving from 12V distribution systems to 48V systems to support the emergence of autonomous vehicles with lidar, radar, camera, and ultrasonic sensors. Our new family of 100 V products demonstrates that in all 48V topologies, the highest efficiency and lowest cost is achieved with GaN FETs and ICs."

In all the topologies with 48Vin, the highest efficiency is achieved with GaN devices due to their lower capacitance and smaller size. EPC asserts that recent pricing decreases in GaN power transistors have shifted the cost comparison with equivalent silicon-based converters to now strongly favor the use of GaN devices in all leading-edge solutions.

The company offers two new reference designs and five demonstration boards that achieving as high as 97% efficiency. These reference designs and demonstration boards demonstrate the high performance of this latest generation of100V eGaN FETs.

The EPC9138 demonstration board is a 400kHz switching frequency, 48Vin, 15A output current, buck converter with the LTC7800 controller and gate driver, featuring the 100V EPC2053 enhancement mode eGaN FET.

EPC9138 development board

The EPC9141 demonstration board, featuring the 100V EPC2045 is a 400kHz switching frequency, 48Vin, 10A output current, buck converter with the LTC7800 controller that has a gate driver.

EPC9141 development board

EPC says that both the EPC9138 and EPC9141 beat the best silicon-based solutions in power density and provide outstanding performance, small size, and low cost.

Also offered are standard half-bridge development boards to support easy in-circuit performance evaluation of each of the 100V family devices. The EPC9092 supports the EPC2052, The EPC9093 supports the EPC2053, the EPC9078 and EPC9205 support the EPC2045, and the EPC9091 supports the EPC2051.

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Features EPC2053 GaN FET

  • Vds, 100V
  • RDS(on), 3.8mΩ
  • Id, 48A
  • Pulsed Id, 246A
  • RoHS 6/6, Halogen-Free

Benefits of EPC2053

  • Higher Switching Frequency - Lower switching losses and lower drive power
  • Higher Efficiency - Lower conduction and switching losses, zero reverse recovery losses
  • Smaller Footprint - Higher power density

Price and Availability

Pricing for products and related development and reference design boards are noted in the table below.

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