IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2017 - 33

©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ARTHEAD

by Nick Fichtenbaum,
Marco Giandalia,
Santosh Sharma,
and Jason Zhang

Half-Bridge GaN
Power ICs
Performance and application

F

or a variety of switching power topologies, especially modern soft-switching or resonant designs,
half-bridge circuits are essential, ubiquitous
building blocks. Operating these half-bridge circuits-i.e., providing power and signal to a floating high-side switch at very high frequencies-can shrink
magnetics and enable a dramatic reduction in size, cost,
and weight while delivering faster charging. However,
such frequency increases have eluded the industry for
decades as silicon (Si) devices have been too slow and
suffered from parasitic impedances between the driver,

high-capacitance Si field-effect transistors (FETs), and
poorly performing level-shifters or isolators. As a result,
most converters still run at 65-100 kHz. This article
describes the exploitation of monolithic, laterally integrated, high-voltage, gallium nitride (GaN) technology to
create high-efficiency, high-performance, half-bridge GaN
power integrated circuits (ICs), and it shows practical
achievements in application efficiency, simultaneously
with increased switching frequency, which deliver higher
power density.

The Half-Bridge Topology
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPEL.2017.2719220
Date of publication: 8 September 2017

2329-9207/17©2017IEEE

The half-bridge topology is ubiquitous in power electronics.
From a single-phase rectified ac-dc down-converter, to a
September 2017

z	IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

33



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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2017

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