Abstract
Rapid progress in the Electronics Industry, and the need for more efficient energy conversion techniques, has necessitated the quest for alternate materials for power semiconductor devices, as Silicon (Si) is reaching its performance limits. The recently developed Gallium Nitride (GaN) power devices, promises to deliver high-frequency switching, high power density converters having better performance compared to conventional Si devices. In this paper, the switching behaviour of a GaN device is investigated through simulations in the LTSpice platform, and verified through experiments using a Double Pulse Test (DPT) Circuit. The parasitic inductances in the power loop and gate loop paths are critical to the device performance, as it results in overshoots and ringing in the switching transients. The PCB for the DPT is designed and developed with an optimal layout, for reducing the parasitic inductances. For accurate device switching characterization using DPT, the method used for current measurement is critical, since it may add additional parasitic inductance. Here, switching characteristics obtained with two different current sensing techniques are compared. This paper describes in addition, the design and development of a GaN based synchronous buck converter, and presents the performance comparison of the SMPS for various higher switching frequencies