Geared for power conversion applications up to 45W and 150W

     In order to facilitate the transition to high energy efficiency wide-gap semiconductor technology, two integrated power system packages of STMicroelectronics MasterGaN3 and MasterGaN5 are designed for power conversion applications up to 45W and 150W respectively. Together with MasterGaN1, MasterGaN2 and MasterGaN4 for 65W to 400W applications, The two new products provide more flexibility for engineers designing switching power supplies, chargers, adapters, high-voltage power factor correction (PFCS) and DC/DC converters to select the right gallium nitride (GaN) devices and drive solutions.

     The MasterGaN concept of STMicroelectronics simplifies the development process of GaN wide band gap power technology to replace common silicon based mosFETs. The new product integrates two 650V power transistors with optimized high voltage grid drivers and associated safety protection circuits, eliminating grid driver and circuit layout design challenges. Because GaN transistors can achieve higher switching frequencies, the new integrated power system package allows power supply size to be reduced by 80% compared to silicon-based designs with high robustness and reliability.

     MasterGaN3's two GaN power transistors have unequal on-going resistance values (Rds(on)) of 225mΩ and 450mΩ respectively, making them suitable for soft switching and active rectifier converters. In MasterGaN5, the on-going resistance (Rds(on) of both transistors is 450mΩ, suitable for such topologies as LLC resonant and active clamp flyback converters.

     Like other members of the MasterGaN product family, both devices have inputs compatible with 3.3V to 15V logic signals, thus simplifying the connection of the product itself to the main controller such as DSP processor, FPGA or microcontroller and external devices such as Hall sensors. The new product also incorporates safety protection features, including high and low edge undervoltage locking (UVLO), gate driver interlocking, overheat protection and turn off pins.

     Each MasterGaN product comes with a dedicated prototype development board to help designers quickly start new power projects. Both the EVALMASTERGAN3 and EVALMASTERGAN5 development boards contain a single ended or complementary drive signal generator circuit. An on-board adjustable dead-time generator and associated device interfaces allow users to use different input signals or PWM signals, connect an external bootstrapping diode to improve capacitive loads, and insert a low sideband resistance for peak flow topologies.