Study on Characteristics of Enhancement-Mode Gallium-Nitride High-Electron-Mobility Transistor for the Design of Gate Drivers

Abstract

An enhancement-mode gallium-nitride high-electron-mobility transistor (E-mode GaN HEMT) operated at high frequency is highly prone to current spikes (di/dt) and voltage spikes (dv/dt) in the parasitic inductor of its circuit, resulting in damage to the power switch. To highlight the phenomena of di/dt and dv/dt, this study connected the drain, source, and gate terminals in series with inductors (LD, LS, and LG, respectively). The objective was to explore the effects of di/dt and dv/dt phenomena and operating frequency (fS) on drain-to-source voltage (Vds), drain-to-source current (Ids), and gate-to-source voltage (Vgs). The experimental method comprised two projects: (1) establishment of a measurement system to assess the change of electrical characteristics of the E-mode GaN HEMT and (2) change of the fS and the inductances (i.e., LD, LS, and LG) in the circuit to measure the changes in Vds, Ids, and Vgs, thus summarizing the experimental results. According to the experimental results on electrical characteristics, a gate driver circuit may be designed to drive and protect the E-mode GaN HEMT while being actually applied to a 120-W synchronous buck converter with an output voltage of 12 V and an output current of 10 A.

Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences

“…Recently, significant efforts have been made by researchers in wide bandgap (WBG) power devices owing to their superior characteristics and properties over that of current dominant Si devices, such as higher breakdown field, higher mobility and higher power density [2][3][4][5]. GaN-based device has been assumed as a very promising candidate in the low-medium voltage range applications [6][7][8][9][10][11][12], owing to GaN device presents excellent performance in accordance with its theoretical characteristics and corresponding technological process among all potential candidates [13]. Currently, there are two types of GaN power devices available in the commercial market, namely, enhancement-mode GaNFETs and cascode GaNFETs.…”