Design and Evaluation of High-frequency GaN Based DC/DC Converter

Traditionally, power conversion has been accomplished using silicon power transistors. The figure-of-merit (FOM) of these devices is governed by the trade-off between on-resistance, breakdown voltage and the input capacitance. With the recent advancements of the GaN technology, devices with better FOM have been realized. The GaN devices offer lower on-resistance resulting in an increase in efficiency, shrinking of size due to high frequency operation, and overall system cost reduction (smaller area, heat sink requirement, etc). To this end, the paper encompasses high frequency GaN based DC/DC converter which is suitable for converting 20V input to 5V outputs for various electronic loads.