TI expands low-power GaN portfolio
Enabling AC/DC power adapters to shrink 50 percent
Texas Instruments has expanded its low-power GaN portfolio, designed to help improve power density, maximise system efficiency, and shrink the size of AC/DC consumer power electronics and industrial systems.
"Today’s consumers want smaller, lighter and more portable power adapters that also provide fast, energy-efficient charging," said Kannan Soundarapandian, general manager of High Voltage Power at TI. "With the expansion of our portfolio, designers can bring the power-density benefits of low-power GaN technology to more applications that consumers use every day, such as mobile phone and laptop adapters, TV power-supply units, and USB wall outlets. Additionally, TI’s portfolio also addresses the growing demand for high efficiency and compact designs in industrial systems such as power tools and server auxiliary power supplies."
The new portfolio of GaN FETs with integrated gate drivers, which includes the LMG3622, LMG3624 and LMG3626, is claimed to offer the industry’s most accurate integrated current sensing. This functionality helps designers achieve maximum efficiency by eliminating the need for an external shunt resistor and reducing associated power losses by as much as 94 percent when compared to traditional current-sensing circuits used with discrete GaN and silicon FETs.
TI says the GaN FETs also enable faster switching speeds, which helps keep adapters from overheating. Designers can reach up to 94 percent system efficiency for <75-W AC/DC applications or above 95 percent system efficiency for >75-W AC/DC applications. The new devices help designers reduce the solution size of a typical 67-W power adapter by as much as 50 percent compared to silicon-based solutions.
The portfolio is also optimised for the most common topologies in AC/DC power conversion, such as quasi-resonant flyback, asymmetrical half bridge flyback, inductor-inductor-converter, totem-pole power factor correction and active clamp flyback.
