A 32-A, 5-V-Input, 94.2% Peak Efficiency High-Frequency Power Converter Module Featuring Package-Integrated Low-Voltage GaN nMOS Power Transistors

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits 2022-04, Vol.57 (4), p.1090-1099
• Main Authors: Desai, Nachiket, Then, Han Wui, Yu, Jingshu, Krishnamurthy, Harish K., Lambert, William J., Butzen, Nicolas, Weng, Sheldon, Schaef, Christopher, Radhakrishnan, Kaladhar, Ravichandran, Krishnan, Tschanz, James W., De, Vivek
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Buck converters; Clamps; Energy conversion efficiency; gallium nitride; GaN power delivery; Gate drivers; Integrated circuits; Logic gates; low-voltage (LV) GaN; Metal oxide semiconductors; Power converters; Power semiconductor devices; Silicon; Switches; Switching circuits; system-in-package; Transistors
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2022.3141779

A buck converter using a low-voltage GaN nMOS power transistor with 5- 10\times superior switching figure-of-merit over Si laterally-diffused MOS (LDMOS) and stacked CMOS at 5 V has been employed to build a high-frequency (3-20 MHz), high-density (9 A/mm 2 ) buck converter for high-performance-compute applications. The GaN-based converter is co-packaged with a CMOS Companion Die on a 4 mm \times 4 mm package and employs on-die gate clamps to minimize the impact of package parasitics for high efficiency. For 5-V input to 1-V output conversion, the converter achieves 94.2% peak efficiency at 3.1-MHz switching frequency with a 40-nH inductor, and >80% peak efficiency at 20 MHz with an air-core inductor.