Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA has introduced the EPC9107, a fully functional buck power conversion demonstration circuit. The board is a 9-28 V input to 3.3V, 15A maximum output current, 1MHz buck converter.It uses the EPC2015 enhancement-mode gallium nitride (eGaN) field-effect transistor (FET) in conjunction with the LM5113 100V half-bridge gate driver from Texas Instruments (TI). EPC says that the EPC9107 demonstrates the reduced size and performance capabilities of high-switching-frequency eGaN FETs when coupled with this dedicated eGaN driver.
The EPC9107 demonstration board is 3” square and contains a fully closed-loop buck converter with optimized control loop. The complete power stage including eGaN FETs, driver, inductor and input/output caps is in an ultra-compact 0.5” x 0.5” layout to showcase the performance that can be achieved using the eGaN FETs with the LM5113 eGaN driver. Despite its small size, the board has peak power efficiency of more than 96% and is capable of delivering 15A of current at 3.3V.
The firm says that the EPC9107 demonstration board is easy to set up and contains various probe points to facilitate simple waveform measurement and efficiency calculation. A Quick Start Guide (containing set-up procedures, circuit diagram, performance curves and a bill of material) is included for reference and ease of use.
EPC9107 demo boards are priced at $195.94 each and are available from the distributor Digi-Key.
