Magnetic components and assembly designer and manufacturer Precision Inc of Minneapolis, MN, USA has launched its gallium nitride (GaN)-ready magnetic capabilities. GaN-ready LLC transformers and PFC inductors are now available for applications spanning power factor correction (PFC), server, solar, automotive/HEV, industrial motor drives, and power supplies/UPS.
GaN switches provide key benefits to design engineers including:
significant reductions in system volume, weight and size; higher operating temperatures/reduced heat sink requirements; lower switching losses/increased power output (up to 95% peak efficiency); and high breakdown strength, high maximum current and high oscillation frequency.
"GaN switching technology is fast becoming a very popular option in a wide number of applications," says design engineering manager Welly Chou. "Precision is proud to have joined forces with industry-leading GaN switch producers to create and now introduce high-performance GaN technology with demonstrated results."
Precision has partnered with GaN experts including International Rectifier and Transphorm to create ultra-compact power supplies with LLC transformer and PFC inductor technologies designed for optimum performance at high switching frequencies. Precision says that it has brought unique expertise in core material selection and the management of parasitics (i.e. leakage inductance and capacitance), together with an extensive Litz wire selection, to GaN technologies that are now available worldwide.
Precision provides other custom GaN-ready magnetics in both PFC and LLC formats directly to design engineers and has partnered with both Transphorm and International Rectifier on large circuits with integrated GaN-ready magnetics.
The EZ-GaN Evaluation Board All-in-One Power Supply from Transphorm is a complete high-density 250W computer power supply using 600V GaN HEMTs switching at 200kHz. The system is said to provide a reduction in size of up to a 45% (compared with a silicon-based equivalent) with a highly efficient design (greater than 95% peak efficiency). This solution was demonstrated in the booths of both Transphorm and OnSemi at March's Applied Power Electronics Conference & Exposition (APEC 2014) in Forth Worth, Texas.
International Rectifier demonstrated its GaN technologies at APEC 2014 through a bridgeless Totem-Pole PFC circuit, achieving 99% efficiency with Precision's PFC-01200-00 inductor.
