Automotive GaN FET with Integrated Driver, Protection and Active Power Management can Reduce Board Space and Improve Power Density in Automotive Applications

Published  November 10, 2020   0
Automotive GaN FET with Integrated Driver from Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments has expanded its portfolio of high-voltage power management devices with the next generation of 650-V and 600-V gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs). The fast-switching and 2.2-MHz integrated gate driver allows the device to deliver twice the power density, achieve 99% efficiency, and reduce the size of power magnetics by 59% compared to existing solutions.

The New GaN FETs can reduce the size of electric vehicle (EV) onboard chargers and DC/DC converters by as much as 50% compared to existing Si or SiC solutions, hence the engineers can achieve extended battery range, increased system reliability, and lower design cost.

In Industrial AC/DC power-delivery applications like the hyper-scale, enterprise computing platforms, and 5G telecom rectifiers GaN FETs can achieve high efficiency and power density. The GaN FETs showcases features like a fast-switching driver, internal protection, and temperature sensing which allow the designers to achieve high performance in reduced board space. 

To reduce the power losses during the fast switching, the new GaN FETs feature an ideal diode mode, which also eliminates the need for adaptive dead-time control eventually reduces firmware complexity and development time. With a lower thermal impedance of 23% than the nearest competitor, the device delivers maximum thermal design flexibility despite the application it is being used.

The new Industrial-grade 600-V GaN FETs are available in a 12 mm x 12 mm quad flat no-lead (QFN) package available for purchase on the company website with the price range starting from US$199.