Prospects of GaN devices in automotive electrification

Abstract:
Increasing levels of electrification in modern cars enable nowadays not only higher comfort and safety but also a significant increase on fuel efficiency and consequent reduction of emissions. Power conversion and motor driving using GaN devices can be seen as one of the most interesting prospects for the next decades in order to achieve even more efficient and compact systems. This paper will firstly present an overview of properties from both lowand high-voltage rated GaN devices, tracing parallels with requirements in automotive systems. Critical issues like short-circuit capability will be discussed, while performance benchmarking will be investigated in two selected applications, namely isolated high-voltage battery-interfacing and low-voltage battery interfacing.