Texas Instruments Expands GaN Power Portfolio With Smallest And Fastest GaN Drivers Of Industry

Bringing a new expansion to its Gallium Nitride (GaN) power portfolio, Texas Instruments (TI) recently came up with two advanced high-speed GaN Field Effect Transistor drivers (FET) that would help in creation of better performing more efficient designs for speed-specific apps like Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) as well as 5G radio-frequency envelope tracking (RF). The LMG1210 and LMG1020 are capable of delivering switching frequencies up to 50 MHz while showing improvement in efficiency and allowing solution sizes to go smaller up to five times. This was not possible with silicon MOSFETs previously.

As its products have the best driving speed in industry and minimum pulse width of approx. 1 ns, the LMG1020 60-MHz low-side GaN driver would allow high-accuracy lasers for industrial LIDAR applications. The smaller wafer-level chip-scale (WCSP) package scaling 0.8mm and 1.2mm support in minimizing gatte-loop losses and parasitics, boosting efficiency further.

The LMG1210 is actually a 50 MHz half-bridge driver designed for GaN FETs till 200V. The adjustable dead time control feature of this device has been designed to improve its efficiency by 5 percent in high-speed DC/DC converters, Class-D audio amplifiers, motor drives, and other kind of power-conversion apps. It will also help designers achieve high system-noise immunity with highest Common-Mode Transient Immunity (CMTI) exceeding 300V/ns. It is one of the highest in industry. Key features of these devices include higher speed, efficiency, and improved power density.