Eval board helps evaluate 100-V high-speed, GaN half-bridges

GaN Systems announced a new 100V High-Speed, Half-Bridge Evaluation Board (GS-EVB-HB-61008P-ON) in collaboration with ON Semiconductor (OnSemi), this high-performance solution is developed for existing and new PCB designs and allows power electronics designers to easily evaluate GaN for growing 48V market applications, including non-isolated step-down converters, non-isolated step-up converters, and half-bridge and full-bridge converters.

The evaluation board includes an OnSemi NCP51810 GaN driver and two GaN Systems GS61008P E-mode GaN power transistors connected in a high-side, low-side configuration and all necessary drive circuitry. It provides the utmost flexibility of GaN transistor and driver combinations and can be applied in any topology that requires the use of a high-side/low-side FET combination. When connected to an existing power supply, it can replace HS/LS drives and MOSFETs. The evaluation board also offers configurable dead-time control and driver enable/disable functions.

One of the major benefits is the evaluation board’s small size and simplified yet robust design. Several pins are available to probe the circuit. HS and LS gate drives, as well as SWN, are accessible. Additional benefits include fast propagation delay of 50 ns max, increased efficiency, and allows paralleling, and control of rising and fall time for EMI tuning.

The OnSemi NCP51810 high-speed gate driver is designed to meet the requirements of driving E-mode GaN HEMT power switches in half-bridge power topologies. Features include 150V, high-side, and low-side gate driver, 200 V/ns dV/dt rating, and offers protection functions such as an independent under-voltage lockout (UVLO) for high-side and low-side output stages.

The GaN Systems GS61008P is an E-mode GaN-on-silicon power transistor, bottom-side cooled that offers very low on-resistance, low gate charge, junction-to-case thermal resistance, and high current capabilities for demanding high power applications. Additionally, the transistor features a simple gate drive (0 V to 6 V), high switching frequency (> 10 MHz), fast and controllable fall and rise times, reverse current capability, and zero reverse recovery loss. These features combine to provide very high-efficiency power switching.