EPC Widens Power Transistor Performance Gap
Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) has introduced six new-generation power transistor products and development boards. Ranging from 30 to 200V, these products provide significant reduction in RDS(on) greatly increasing their output current capability in applications such as high power density DC-DC converters, Point-of-Load (POL) converters, synchronous rectification in DC/DC and AC/DC converters, motor drives, LED lighting, and industrial automation.
To demonstrate the improved performance of these new eGaN FETs, two buck converters were built. The EPC9018 combines the 30V EPC2023 FET as the synchronous rectifier with the 40V EPC2015 as the control switch of a 12 V to 1.2 V DC-DC point of load (POL) converter. The 12 V to 1.2 V, 40A POL converter operating at switching frequency of 1 MHz achieved efficiencies above 91.5 percent and demonstrated the superior in-circuit performance of the latest generation of eGaN power devices compared to the state-of-the-art Si MOSFET modules.
The EPC9019, a 48V to 12V converter, uses the 80V, EPC2021 as the synchronous rectifier switch with the 100V EPC2001 as the control switch. The results of this 48V to 12V, 30A non-isolated DC-DC intermediate bus converter operating at a switching frequency of 300kHz achieved efficiencies above 98 percent, again significantly outperforming a comparable converter using state-of-the-art silicon power MOSFETs.
Development boards are available to support easy 'in circuit' performance evaluation of each new product being introduced. The boards are half-bridge configurations and include all the critical components on a single board that can be easily connected into any existing converter.
