28 March 2014

EPC presenting DC-DC converter using eGaN HEMTs operating at 10MHz with 89% peak efficiency and ability to operate in harsh environments

At the 39th annual Government Microcircuit Applications and Critical Technology (GOMACTech 2014) conference in Charleston, SC, USA (3 April), Alex Lidow, CEO & co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA, which makes enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) for power management applications, will present results of a newly released family of eGaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) designed for high-frequency operation in the 10MHz range. The presentation will also highlight the stability of the devices under radiation exposure, making them suitable for high-reliability applications.

Enhancement-mode GaN transistors have been commercially available since 2010. They have since enabled significant efficiency improvement in commercial DC-DC converters in a variety of topologies and at a variety of power levels. E-mode transistors have also demonstrated tolerance to gamma radiation and single event effects (SEE). Compared with radiation-tolerant power MOSFETs, GaN FETs offer improvements of up to a 40-fold in key switching performance figures of merits, says EPC. This enables designers of space-level power supplies to achieve the efficiencies of commercial state-of-the-art systems, the firm adds.

“These GaN-on-silicon power transistors, designed for multi-megahertz switching converter applications, allow the designer of radiation-tolerant systems to achieve power densities and efficiencies that equal the commercial state-of-the-art,” says Lidow.

Tags: EPC E-mode GaN FETs

Visit: www.epc-co.com

Visit: www.gomactech.net/2014