Evaluation and applications of 600V/650V enhancement-mode GaN devices

Abstract

This paper presents elaborate evaluation of 600V/650V enhancement mode gallium nitride (GaN) devices. The switching loss mechanism and the impact of package and driving circuit parameters are illustrated in detail. The hard-switching turn-on loss is dominant due to junction capacitor charge of the freewheeling switch. The turn-off loss is much smaller and it can be further improved by driving circuit parameters and packaging. The driving circuit taking consider of high dv/dt and di/dt immunity is discussed. A few design examples are shown to demonstrate the advantage of GaN and the impact of GaN on system design.