EPC anounces 50W, 12V to 60V Boost Converter
eGaN FET-based demo board achieves 95.3 percent peak efficiency with a simple, low-cost topology
EPC announces the availability of the EPC9162, a bi-directional buck or reverse-boost converter. This demonstration board features the 100V EPC2052 for the synchronous converter, and the EPC2038 in the synchronous bootstrap FET circuit.
The EPC9162 is by default programmed as a boost converter operating at 12V input to 60V/50W output. However, the board can also be operated as a buck converter at 48 V input to 12 V/60 W output. The fast-switching speed of eGaN FETs significantly reduces switching losses for higher efficiency operation. To make it simple for a power supply designer to easily replicate this design, all supporting materials for this board including schematic, bills of materials, and Gerber files are available on the EPC website.
The peak efficiency from 12 V to 60 V/0.85 A is 95.3 percent and the light load efficiency is 86 percent with only a 40defC temperature rise despite the small size of the eGaN FETs.
“In applications where light-load efficiency is critical, such as LED backlighting for laptops and monitors, the low switching losses of eGaN FETs provide high efficiency with very low temperature rise to prevent equipment overheating,” said Alex Lidow, CEO of EPC. “The synchronous boost topology is a simple, low-cost solution for power system designers.”
The EPC9162 demonstration board is priced at $284.20 each and is available from Digi-Key.