More on: Navitas 4th generation protected GaN power with integrated drivers

Branded GaNsafe, the corporate has elevated the safety built-in alongside the driving force and has moved to 10 x 10mm TOLL packaging, with a customized inside leadframe (diagram under).

The preliminary merchandise are rated at 650V (800V transients), cowl Rds(on) from 35 to 98mΩ (desk under), and are aimed toward functions from 1 to 22kW. Switching at as much as 2MHz is envisaged.

Built-in safety consists of short-circuit, over-temperature, under-voltage lock-out, 20V enter and 2kV HBM ESD (HBM, 1kV CDM. The short-circuit safety is described each as ’50ns’ and ‘300ns de-saturation’ – solely partial particulars are thus far obtainable on the 4 preliminary gadget. They're sampling now, however solely to “certified prospects”, mentioned Navitas.

On prime of this, on and off dV/dt is now managed by the driving force – set internally within the preliminary 4 pin gadgets, however described as ‘programmable’.

TOLL bundle

Floor-mount TOLL packaging has change into more and more fashionable amongst energy semiconductor makers for the bundle’s low inductance, low electrical resistance and low thermal resistance.

Internally, the leadframe of Navitas’ spin on it has keyed enter and Kelvin supply pads, however fused essential supply pads. It passes “IPC-9701 for lengthy mechanical lifetime”, in response to the corporate, referring to ‘IPC-9701 Thermal biking check methodology for fatigue life characterization of floor mount attachments’.

Thermal resistance is 0.36K/W, and Navitas claims 100°C junction temperature in an software wherein it will attain 112°C in the same QFN.

Integrating the gate driver alongside GaN switching transistors makes loads of sense as they change far quicker than another widespread energy transistors – stray driver-to-gate inductance can't solely sluggish them down, however will increase the possibility of transient harm to the considerably fragile gates.

Navitas shouldn't be the one firm integrating gate drivers: some do it monolithically and different by co-packaging a silicon die.

Within the Navitas case, it began with GaNfast, which may have present sensing and a few stage of autonomous safety, after which on to GaNsense gadgets with autonomous over-current and over-temperature safety, “loss-less” present sensing, 30-100ns short-circuit safety, 800V transient operation and 2kV ESD safety.

“In the course of the on-time of every switching cycle, ought to the height present exceed the specified restrict, then the interior gate drive will flip the GaN IC off shortly and truncate the on-time interval to forestall harm from occurring to the IC,” mentioned the corporate on the introduction of GaNsense.

Don’t get too hung up on the model soup, the options mix from one to the opposite. Pre-GaNsafe gadgets (examples left) have additionally included: on-die regulation, hysteretic inputs, bootstraping, dV/dt management, under-voltage lock-out safety, autonamous stand-by, high-side remoted level-shift, shoot-through safety and a co-packaged silicon low-voltage system controller.

Navitas is fabless, utilizing TSMC to make its GaN die

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