Design consideration of high power GaN inverter

Abstract

With the rapid development of wide bandgap power transistor technology, the latest gallium-nitride based power transistors are able to be used as the main switches in the high power (≥10 kW) conversion systems. In order to achieve the desired high efficiency and higher power density successfully, the entire GaN based power conversion system needs to take multiple considerations into the design stage. In this paper, a three-phase inverter is used as the example to explain those considerations in detail, including the critical component selection, the system physical layout, the cooling system design, the protection functions design and the EMI control. Based on the proposed design methodology, a 10 kW GaN-based three phase inverter is developed with 98.8% peak efficiency with 0.7 liter box volume.