Now’s the time to commercialise the GaN IC
POWER CONVERSION SYSTEMS are at the heart of most electronic equipment, from home appliances and laptops to data centres and electric vehicles.
In some of these applications GaN technologies will soon be essential, because silicon has hit its physical limits as a power-conversion platform.
As well as increasing the efficiency of power conversion stages, GaN has other virtues. They stem from its great physical properties, such as:
a bandgap of 3.2 eV, nearly three times that of silicon; and a breakdown field of 3.3 MV/cm, which is around ten times that of silicon. These strengths contribute to excellent values for both the on- resistance and the key figure of merit – the product of the on-resistance and the surface area of the chip. GaN devices can deliver high currents, a high breakdown voltage and a high switching frequency, and are competing with current MOSFETs and super junction MOSFETs in power applications operating at voltages of up to 650 V READ MORE