To enable power electronics engineers to quickly evaluate the performance of gallium nitride (GaN) based enhancement-mode high-electron-mobility transistors (e-HEMTs), Canadian fabless semiconductor company GaN Systems has launched a daughterboard-style evaluation kit. It comprises a universal motherboard (GS665MB-EVB) and four daughterboards ranging from 750 W to 2,500 W. Each daughter card consists of two GaN Systems’ 650 V GaN e-HEMTs and all the necessary circuits, including half-bridge gate drivers, isolated power supplies and an optional heatsink to form a high performance half-bridge power stage. The gate drivers utilized are Silicon Labs Si8271.
Motherboard, daughter board combination helps power electronics engineers evaluate gallium nitride (GaN) based 650 V enhancement-mode HEMTs in any half-bridge based power supply topology. Image Credit: GaN Systems The motherboard and daughterboard combination offers a reference design that enables power design engineers to evaluate the performance of these 650 V GaN e-HEMTs in a system design, such as a buck, boost or double pulse tester. Since the vertical mount style daughtercard offers a 35 mm height, it meets the 1U design requirements of many power supply units. Because the evaluation platform offers a universal footprint, it allows designers to investigate the performance of these GaN transistors at various power levels for optimal cost-performance decisions.
The four compatible daughtercards for the 650 V universal motherboard include GS66504B-EVBDB, GS66508B-EVBDB, GS66508T-EVBDB, and GS66516T-EVBDB. These interchangeable daughtercards accommodate 650 V GaN e-HEMTs ranging from 15 A to 60 A, as well as the fast switching isolated gate driver Si8271 offering high common-mode transient immunity (CMTI) rating and low under voltage lockout (UVLO). Together with the motherboard, it allows engineers to evaluate GaN e-HEMT performance in any half-bridge based power supply topology.
Additionally, GaN Systems has also released a demo board, labeled GS61008P-EVBBK, for evaluating 100 V, 90 A GaN e-HEMT GS61008P in a highly efficient 48 V to 12 V synchronous buck converter system utilizing switching frequencies up to 2 MHz.
