Proof-of-concept gallium-nitride power electronic converter design for HEV energy management application

The aim of this paper is to compare the switching behavior of GaN switches with state of the art Si MOSFETs. Associated parameters in determining the power dissipation of a switch are initially discussed and compared between commercial GaN and Si switches. The Spice models of switches provided by the manufacturer are used to simulate a typical half-bridge DC-DC converter and analyze the switching behavior, loss analysis and converter efficiency of the circuit. High switching loss generally due to the slow switching of power devices, limits the key power conversion figure of merit (FOM) of efficiency × density/cost. The possible contribution of GaN power transistors in high-voltage/high-frequency applications with respect to improvement of the aforementioned FOM is the main scheme of this paper.