Power Semiconductors

At APEC 2018, GaN Systems Unveils 100 V/120 A Power Transistor, Reports 10,000+ Hours of Qualification Testing for GaN E-HEMT Devices

07 March 2018

At the Applied Power Electronics Conference & Exposition (APEC) in San Antonio, power semiconductor developer GaN Systems unveiled the industry’s highest current and power-efficient 100 V GaN power transistor, the 100 V, 120 A, 5 mΩ GaN E-HEMT device [GS-010-120-1-T]. It is 1.3X the current rating of GaN Systems’ own 90 A part and 2.4X-to-4.6X the current rating of other high current GaN in the industry. The GS-010-120-1-T is an enhancement mode GaN-on-silicon power transistor that leverages all of the die design and packaging advantages delivered from GaN Systems.

The transistor is ideal for the growing 48 V applications in the automotive, industrial and renewable energy industries which require power systems with high power levels in smaller size form factors. Bringing products like the GS-010-120-1-T into market results in realizations such as longer range electrical vehicles, lower operating cost renewable energy equipment, and smaller, highly integrated industrial power equipment.

It also enables greater design flexibility and affords options for immediate specification changes. The Source: GaN SystemsSource: GaN Systemstransistor is footprint-compatible with GaN Systems’ 100 V, 90 A GaN E-HEMT (GS61008T), thereby enabling customers to add further power by substituting the GS-010-120-1-T without changing their board. Increasing the current capability in the same size package allows customers to effectively increase the power by 33 percent for the same system volume.

GaN Systems also announced at APEC that it has surpassed 10,000 hours of qualification testing for its GaN E-HEMT devices. This is 10X the 1,000-hour requirement to meet Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) qualification. As the power electronics industry increases adoption of GaN power transistors, the need for high confidence in the technology is imperative.

Why is 10,000 hours important? We live in a world where our electronics are expected to last a long time. For computers and cell phones this may be a couple of years for some, but 5-10 years for others. For our homes, offices and factories, 20+ years are routinely expected. And while nearly all automobiles are on the road for only a few years, expectations are that some will drive the “old jalopy” for 20 years or more. End-users and power equipment makers want long-lifetime equipment. And power system manufacturers want to make sure that the semiconductors in their products last far longer than the expected life of the system. With long lifetime in mind, semiconductor manufacturers perform accelerated testing at elevated temperature, voltage and current to prove these long durations. The longer the duration of the accelerated reliability tests, the longer the lifetime of the semiconductors in the real world.

What does 10,000 hours mean in terms of lifetime? The industry standard of 1,000 hours of JEDEC testing equates to 10+ years of lifetime at normal operating conditions. Extend that testing by 10X to 10,000 hours (1.5 years) and the lifetime jumps to >1,000 years. This is what the power system makers want: GaN semiconductors that outlast the rest of the system.

Due to the physics of semiconductors, the GaN results are not surprising. Semiconductor design engineers are aware that the critical factor in device lifetime is a complex property known as Activation Energy. Activation Energy is the minimum amount of energy required to initiate a particular process, in this case, the energy to cause failure in the semiconductor device. The higher the value, the more energy it takes to damage the device.

For GaN, the activation energy is ~2.0eV, while for Silicon the activation energy is ~0.7eV. It takes far more energy to damage a GaN power transistor than a silicon power transistor. Consequently, at the same operating conditions, a system using GaN transistors accumulates less damage and lasts a longer time. GaN Systems now has the data to back the long-life conclusion.

Many examples of customer adoption in multiple applications with GaN Systems transistors will be on display at APEC on March 4-8 in Booth #1041.

To contact the author of this article, email shimmelstein@globalspec.com


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