Merits of gallium nitride based power conversion

Gallium nitride (GaN) based power electronics devices are actively being evaluated to determine if their theoretical advantages over silicon (Si) based switches can translate into improved performance of existing hardware as well as open the doors to new types of applications, such as high temperature implementations, or very high frequency power conversion. The following paper presents an overview of this activity. A brief summary about power electronics and the requirements of semiconductor devices used in this field is provided. Detailed analysis of the advantages and the challenges of using GaN devices is included along with a survey of demonstrations. This work also presents the test results from the evaluation of GaN devices from Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) and Transphorm. Included is a demonstration of EPC’s devices in a high frequency, high efficiency, switched-capacitor voltage doubler. This circuit achieves an output of 480 W at a switching frequency of 893 kHz. (Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)