Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) announced the 60 V EPC2035 and 100 V EPC2036 eGaN power transistors designed to compete in price, while outperforming silicon. Price, the last barrier to widespread adoption of GaN transistors as silicon MOSFET replacements, has fallen. These products demonstrate that gallium nitride can displace silicon semiconductors and drive the industry back onto the Moore’s Law growth curve.
The power MOSFETs used for comparison to these new GaN FETs were selected based on having comparable maximum rated on-resistance (RDS(on)) and having the same maximum rated breakdown voltage (VDS(max)). Note that the indicators of switching speed, QOSS, QGD, and QG, are shown in this table for comparison (lower values are better).
Likewise, the capacitances are significantly less for the new EPC2035 and EPC2036 than for their counterpart MOSFETs. Device area is also shown for comparison and it can be seen that the EPC2035 and EPC2036 are one-fortieth the area of their equivalent MOSFET component
Power system designers can, for the first time, realize lower cost, superior switching speeds, and a meaningfully smaller final product when designing with gallium nitride parts.
Development Boards
Development boards are available to support easy “in circuit” performance evaluation of this new family of eGaN FETs. The boards measure 2” x 1.5” and are in a half-bridge topology, featuring the eGaN FETs, onboard gate drives, supply and bypass capacitors. The boards contain all the critical components are laid out for optimal switching performance.
Price and Availability
Pricing for the EPC2035 power transistors at 1K units is $0.36 each and $0.38 for the EPC2036. The 10K unit prices are $0.29 and $0.31 respectively. The EPC9049 and EPC9050 development boards are $104.40 each.
