Lateral GaN Power Devices and Integrated GaN Power Circuits: Status and Recent Progress

Abstract:
This work discusses the status and recent progress of lateral GaN power devices and GaN power ICs. The performance of different discrete power devices is compared by figure-of-merits and by different device characteristics. Furthermore, GaN power ICs are classified regarding its functionality and compared in terms of its switching performance. The recent progress in development of GaN power ICs is exemplified on three generations of demonstrator devices. GaN power ICs in half-bridge configuration are shown in two different highly-compact assembly technologies: PCB-embedding and laser-structured DCB-boards, with multi wire bonding. Further examples of highly-integrated power ICs are shown: as the design of an All-in-GaN power IC, that includes all active components of a converter, a hetero-integrated GaN HEMT on a CMOS wafer by micro transfer printing and finally a three-phase inverter IC with interleaved half-bridges, which enables highly compact servo motor applications.