650 V AllGaN™ power IC for power supply applications

Abstract

The first high voltage Gallium Nitride (GaN) switches to appear in the market were based on depletion-mode HEMT (dMode FET) technology. This requires either a complex gate driver to manage the negative threshold or a low voltage FET in cascode configuration. The lack of direct control of the GaN switch and the need for expensive multichip packaging has delayed the adoption of GaN power stage in off-line applications [1]. As of today, monolithic integration of enhancement-mode GaN HEMT (eMode FET) with driver and logic can offer significant benefits to driving performance, reducing propagation delay, increasing turn-off speed, and reducing switching loss, while using smaller magnetics and capacitors. The AllGaN™power integrated circuit platform increases SMPS switching frequency by an order of magnitude, enabling innovative architectures in soft switching or resonant topologies such as CrCM PFC and LLC, while improving system efficiency and power density.