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GaN power devices have been in mass production for over 12 years [1] and have arguably crossed over the tipping point in adoption with such end-uses as cell phone fast chargers, DC-DC converters for servers, motor drives for electric bicycles and scooters, class-D audio amplifiers, and lidar sensors for autonomous vehicles and robots.  Some of these applications first started using discrete GaN transistors and later converted to GaN integrated circuits.  Others have stayed with discrete devices.  This paper will discuss the reasons for different adoption rates in different applications and will speculate on the changes that will occur due to new GaN transistor performance and new capabilities in integrating functions in GaN.

IEEE WiPDA 2022

What is the Right Level of Integration for GaN Power Devices?

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 The IEEE Workshop on Wide Bandgap Power Devices & Applications (WiPDA) provides a forum for device scientists, circuit designers, & application engineers from the Power Electronics & Electron Devices Societies to share technology updates, research findings, experience & potential applications.
 
 **Topics of interest**
* Heteroepitaxial & Bulk Materials Growth
* Gate Dielectrics & Surface Passivation
* Device Structures & Fabrication Techniques
* Device Characterization & Modeling
* Very-High Efficiency Or Compact Converters
* Safe Operating Areas Of Wide Bandgap Devices, including Short Circuit, Spike, &Transient Tolerance
* Harsh Environment (High Temperature) Operation & Reliability
* Packaging Power Modules & ICs
* Gate Drive & Other Auxiliary Circuits
* High-Performance Passive Components
* Hard-Switched & Soft-Switched Application Analysis
* Applications in Renewable Energy & Energy Storage, Transportation, Industrial Drives, Grid Power Systems, Space and Aerospace
* Wide Bandgap System Design Philosophies & Strategies
* Radio Frequency (RF) GaN
* Technology Roadmap of Wide Bandgap Including Devices, Applications and Packaging

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The IEEE Workshop on Wide Bandgap Power Devices & Applications (WiPDA) provides a forum for device scientists, circuit designers, & application engineers from the Power Electronics & Electron Devices Societies to share technology updates, research findings, experience & potential applications.

keynote

Our world’s sustainable future is linked to energy efficiency and GaN’s innovative technology. The world is witnessing a data explosion. The demand for a cleaner and healthier global environment clearly shows that sustainability must be more than a footnote in a company’s annual report. Yet, the energy-driven world is leading to historically high-power consumption due partly to our increased dependence on power-reliant industries, including data centers, electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, and consumer electronics. Technology helped create this problem. Now, it’s time for technology – specifically ‘GaN-Powered’ technology – to help solve this problem. From the humble chargers to the all-important EV powertrain, GaN power systems are solving today’s technical, economic, and environmental challenges. During this session, Jim Witham, CEO of GaN Systems, will discuss how GaN plays a crucial role in changing our relationship with power by enabling the creation of new sustainability solutions.

Designing with GaN to Solve Today’s Global Power Challenges

Wide bandgap semiconductors are expanding rapidly into legacy silicon applications, with a combined market opportunity over $22B by 2026. The voltage and power range where silicon MOSFETs are the preferred solution is now limited to less than 100V and less than 1kW, and even that range is shrinking. GaN is now preferred from 100V to 750V ratings and up to 20kW due to its extremely low losses, reduced chip sizes, and integrated solutions driving low system costs. SiC is a clear winner in high-efficiency and high-density applications for 800V and higher power rails, with power FETs and diodes ranging from 650V to 6,500V.  Switching frequencies are increasing in new topologies with GaN power ICs in applications such as data-center PFC and DC-DC stages, solar micro-inverters, and home appliance motor drives, with SiC FETS in advanced BLDC industrial motor drives and solar string-inverters. GaN device and application examples include new GaNSense half-bridge power ICs with loss-less current sensing and high-speed over-current protection enabling an advanced 140 W USB PD 3.1 fast-charger design, and a ‘Titanium Plus’ 2.7 kW CRPS AC-DC. Navitas‘ GeneSiC FETs enable high-frequency totem-pole PFC and motor drive while lowering energy loss compared to both silicon IGBTs and other SiC MOSFETs. Both technologies deliver cutting-edge performance in support of the mission to “Electrify Our World™” and reduce CO2 emissions.​

High-speed GaN and SiC: $22B of pure-play power semiconductors

The GaN devices market growth is expected to be in excess of 60% following the demand of energy efficient and high power density system solutions. Several players have already adopted GaN in the consumer electronics market and there is a significant demand for GaN in the higher power segments, including data centres and solar inverters. This talk will go through the most recent GaN and power devices market variations and it will then focus on the reasons why the lateral technology will succeed in both low and high power markets. Examples of current solutions and their applications will be given.

GaN lateral devices: technology advantages and key application benefits

Radio frequency (RF) engineers and power (Power)  electronics engineers are increasingly using gallium nitride (GaN) in their products replacing Si technology.  While there are differences in RF and power GaN technology, such as substrate, GaN epi thickness, etc., the core properties of GaN, that leads to advantages over Si are the same, such as higher breakdown voltage, high electron mobility in 2DEG compared to Si MOSFET. In a typical company, RF and power electronics engineers operate in separate silos, rarely interact with each other except to discuss power supply specs and are literally decoupled by bypass capacitors or capacitor banks.   At Tagore Technology, we have brought together RF and Power engineers under the same roof with the common thread being GaN. Our goal is to explore co-design of GaN power supply and GaN power amplifiers to create a compact solution at the PCB/Module level now and possibly on the same wafer in future. This talk will highlight one such application where pulsed radar power amplifiers are supplied by a high frequency GaN converter leading to 20x reduction in capacitor bank size without impacting noise properties of the RF signal. The challenges of co-design such as mixing of power supply switching noise as a phase noise of the RF signal as well as thermal management challenges will be highlighted.

Bringing RF & Power closer through GaN Technology

The first GaN power devices has been commercialized over a decade ago. These devices have been demonstrated in multiple end applications including chargers for cell phones, motor drives, DC/DC converters for servers or class-D audio amplifiers. GaN devices delivers clear benefits in system performance or cost in those end applications, but true commercial success has been mostly limited to chargers for cell phone or other portable devices. This limited commercial success so far is at least partly due to a restricted supply of GaN device production at a competitive cost point. The various fabless startups are facing the issue of high GaN wafer price at foundries (6-inch today) and limited value adder of discrete device design. More functionality integration on GaN die aims to increase their value adder of these products vs. discrete devices with mixed results and market adoption success. This presentation will argue that true integrated device manufacturer with high volume 8-inch internal manufacturing, fully focused on GaN is the game changer required to bring GaN power devices out of peripheral applications and into mainstream high-volume end-products, including mobile phones. In such ecosystem, roadmap based on discrete devices from 650V down to 30V and system-in-package integration is highly attractive for foreseeable future. This talk will give examples of latest device innovation including 40V bi-directional GaN switch reducing on-state resistance by 50%, chip size by 70% and temperature rise by 40%. First ever GaN product designed directly into mobile phone handset.

GaN device innovation matched with manufacturing capacity and quality propels GaN to new markets

GaN Growth Beyond Consumer Applications: What is the Right Level of Integration?

Wide-bandgap Device and related technology to Enable Medium Voltage Distribution Power Grid

DC short circuit fault ride-through is a critical feature for the reliability and performance of DC microgrids. This paper presents the advantage that SiC-based devices offer for designing a Dual-Active Bridge (DAB) DC-DC converter while considering DC short circuit events. It is known that SiC-MOSFET devices have a higher transient current carrying capability than Si-IGBT devices due to their superior thermal conductivity. This characteristic of SiC-MOSFET devices is utilized to improve the design of DAB for DC short circuit fault ride-through applications. An analytical model is developed to understand the performance of a DAB during DC short circuit faults. Switching and thermal simulations are used to validate the analytical model and compare DAB designs based on SiCMOSFET and Si-IGBT. The advantages of SiC-MOSFET enabled DAB compared to Si-IGBT enabled DAB are also quantified for a particular application of DAB in a DC microgrid. It is shown that for fault ride-through applications, DAB enabled with SiCMOSFET can be designed for lower phase shifts compared to Si-IGBT enabled DAB, which inherently reduces the inductor size and circulating current in a DAB.

Advantages of SiC-Based Devices on the Design of Dual-Active Bridge DC/DC Converter for DC Faults

In this paper, the gate driving characteristics of a SiC cascoded Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET) is explored. Firstly, a Conventional Gate Drive (CGD) circuit is analyzed and implemented, followed by the proposal and implementation of two Active Gate Driving (AGD) methods for the cascoded JFET. Two approaches of gate control are explored: i) using the low-voltage -MOSFET gate & (ii) using the JFET gate. Switching characteristics during turn-on and turn-off for the CGD and both AGD approaches are compared, and it is observed that the proposed AGD circuits provide controllability of both switching edges and thus allowing an application optimized switching operation. Analytical, simulation and experimental results are shown to verify the proposed methods.

Active Gate Driving of Cascoded SiC JFETs

Resonant converters are used extensively for voltage regulation and isolation purposes in electric vehicles. The power level and frequency of the converters is increasing with the ongoing development of the wide-band-gap devices, which brings more challenges to the design of magnetic components. The first challenge is that such high power and frequency make it hard to make proper Litz wire. In this paper, a new current sharing method for paralleled Litz wire transformers is introduced. Using this method, the transformer can stand much higher current without increasing the cost or volume. And the power level can be further increased by integrating more matrix transformers. The second challenge is the resonant inductance integration. Different resonant inductance integration methods are summarized and compared. And controlling the leakage inductance by properly breaking the interleaving structure is proposed in this paper. Using this method, the desired leakage inductance can be reached without sacrificing too much winding loss. Comprehensive transformer design and optimization procedure is also presented in this paper. A 30 kW 100 kHz Serial Half Bridge DC-DC converter prototype is designed to verify the methods at last.

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