Building Blocks for GaN Power Integration

Abstract

GaN technology is on the advance for the use in power ICs thanks to space-saving integrated circuit components and the increasing number of integrated devices. This work experimentally investigates a number of key building blocks for GaN power integration. First, an overview of the active and passives devices of the technology is given with focus on area-efficient layouts for power transistors and limitations of on-chip capacitors and inductors with comparison to other IC technologies. Digital and analog basic circuits as part of device libraries are examined and optimized with regard to area-efficiency. The NOT gates have active areas as low as 56.7 µm 2 and max. static currents of 0.12 mA with high noise margins. Further digital gates are presented. For the analog circuits, differential amplifiers and voltage reference concepts are presented and compared. Finally, GaN power integration is discussed, and integration levels are defined and described. The GaN technology is compared with other IC technologies, and future challenges and perspectives are shown. GaN power integration based on building blocks aims to exploit the full potential of the lateral GaN technology in order to compete with Si-based IC technologies in the future.INDEX TERMS Gallium nitride, integrated circuit technology, power integrated circuits, logic circuits, analog circuits

Monolithic Dual-Gate E-Mode Device-Based NAND Logic Block for GaN MIS-HEMTs IC Platform

“…A. Chvá la et al demonstrated a monolithic NAND cell that is based on InAlN/GaN MIS-HEMTs with a maximum gate voltage of 3 V, and confirming the validity of the proposed models [20]. As an essential building block for digital circuits, implementing dual-gate E-mode NAND (DG-NAND) by p-GaN HEMTs with a smaller area provides an optimization method [21]. However, as a result of the limitations of p-GaN technology with low gate breakdown voltage, the gate driver voltage is limited to 5 V, which requires extra protection circuits for an all-GaN integrated circuit (IC) development.…”

“…Papers [18] and [30] uses a second gate to complete the design of a bidirectional device. Both papers [20] and [21] utilize a dualgate structure for the functional block of the monolithic integrated GaN platform. Verifying the dynamic performance and comparing it with the conventional design is necessary.…”

GaN Active Rectifier Diode

“…This section presents the design of the monolithic integrated GaN active rectifier diode in a p-GaN power IC platform. The platform with building blocks is presented in [36]. A first hybrid design was published in [37].…”

Monolithically Integrated GaN Power Stage for More Sustainable 48 V DC–DC Converters

“…With the advent and ascent of gallium nitride (GaN) power transistors, these have been increasingly used in power stages to achieve primarily higher power density and efficiency [1,2]. In addition, the GaN technology with its lateral transistor structure (known as high electron mobility transistors, HEMTs) enables the monolithic integration of additional functions and circuits on a chip to realize cost-effective GaN power ICs [3][4][5][6] used in power converters with a reduced bill of material (BOM) and associated lower relative climate impact [7].…”