Seven Steps to Highly Effective GaN Designs
Today, we operate in a very fast-moving world, looking for shortcuts, opportunities to “copy and paste” to complete tasks in a short period of time. Although GaN power transistors are relatively new, design “rules of thumb” has been established and proven to meet fast time-to-market objectives. Over the years, seven steps to a successful design have been developed and proven – backed by ongoing and updated documentation and customer training.
By Juncheng (Lucas) Lu, GaN Systems Applications Engineering Manager, GaN Systems
This article provides an overview of these seven steps and links to application notes to inform users and customers of the latest information needed to optimize their GaN designs.
Step 1 – Gate Drive Selection
Driving the gates of GaN enhancement mode high electron mobility transistors (E-HEMTs) has similarities in common with driving the gates of silicon (Si) MOSFETs – but with a few beneficial differences.
Driving GaN E-HEMTs does not eliminate any popular Si gate drivers; they simply make GaN easier and more effective to use. This means high-voltage (>600V) quasi-resonant and fixed frequency flyback adapters, chargers, and other low-power AC/DC controllers can be used for different LLC and power factor correction (PFC) configurations in GaN designs.
Simple circuitry provides the transition capability for using a Si con- troller for GaN devices. For a single GaN device, the isolated, negative VGS(OFF) EZDrive® circuit is a low-cost, easy way to use a 12V driver to drive a 6V GaN transistor for use with any controller or driver with single, dual, or high-side/low-side drivers. A new driver, the Heyday HEY1011, provides significant size reduction and board space savings in GaN designs. With its ability to eliminate bootstrap and isolated supplies, it is also the smallest isolated gate drive solution in the market.
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