Panasonic Corp of Osaka, Japan is launching what it claims is the industry's smallest enhancement-mode (E-mode) gallium nitride (GaN) power transistor, encapsulating into an 8x8 dual-flat no-lead (DFN) 'X-GaN' surface-mount package.
A conventional GaN power transistor is encapsulated in a high-heat-diffusion surface-mount TO220 package (measuring 15mm x 9.9mm x 4.6mm), but Panasonic says that this is not small enough and limits the mounting area on the printed circuit board. Enabling the package to be mounted on a small area (difficult to do conventionally) can help to reduce power consumption in industrial and consumer electronics equipment, says the firm.
By using a surface-mounting package, the parasitic inductance is reduced and hence the intrinsic characteristic of the GaN power transistor (high switching performance) is achieved in a smaller footprint (8mm x 8mm x 1.25mm, 43% less than the firm's conventional TO-220 packaged products) at high voltage.
Picture: Panasonic's E-mode 600V GaN power transistor package.
The new transistor has a breakdown voltage is 600V in enhancement-mode, and has achieved high-speed switching of 200V/ns and a low on-resistance of 54-154mΩ. The firm will ship product samples with current ratings of 10A (PGA26E19BV) and 15A (PGA26E08BV) in July.
Applications include AC-DC power supply units (PFCs, insulated DC-DC converters), battery-charging systems, PV power conditioners and electrical vehicle (EV) inverters.
The new product is being exhibited at Power Conversion Intelligent Motion (PCIM) Europe 2015 in Nurnberg, Germany (19-21 May).
Panasonic's creation of the E-mode power transistor was enabled by its original normally-off gate injection transistor (GIT), realized on 6-inch silicon substrate. The latest development work has been partially supported by Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) under the Strategic Development of Energy Conservation Technology Project.
