By Steve Bush 9th February 2021
GaN transistor maker EPC has picked a Renesas controller for a 1/16 brick 300W dc-dc converter demo board.
“Renesas’ synchronous buck controller IC makes using GaN even easier,” said EPC CEO Alex Lidow. “We are delighted to work with Renesas to combine the benefits of its controllers with the performance of GaN to provide customers with a low component-count solution.”
Called EPC9157 and measuring 33 x 22.9 x 9mm (photo right), converter board combines a Renesas ISL81806 80V dual synchronous buck controller with two pairs of 100V EPC2218 GaN transistors to convert 48V to 12V at 25A with >95% efficiency once the output is over 15A.
In this case, the two controller outputs are used to provide two-phase interleaved switching for a single output. Bootstrapping is included for the high-side transistors, and the critical drive voltage is 5.3V.
Switching is at a constant 500kHz and remote output voltage sense and output trim (to 16V) are included, along with protection against over-temperature, output over-current and output over-voltage.
The input can span 20 to 60V (65V abs max) and be as high as 12A. 1,700LFM (linear feet/minute) air flow is required to get the full 25A output.
A logic signal or open-drain/emitter can be used to turn the converter on or off, and it provides a power-good output.
As a demo board, no EMI filtering is included.
EPC9157 is the 1⁄16th brick evaluation (top right), but ordering EPC9157KIT gets you one of those as well as an EPC9534 test fixture board (combination left).
EPCs sees products based on its demo suiting data centre, computing, telecommunication and automotive applications.
The product page is here and DigiKey is stocking the boards
Tagged with: dc-dc demonstration EPC Evaluation GaN
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