High-speed gallium nitride (GaN) gate drivers from ON Semiconductor

     ON Semiconductor announced that its NCP51820 high-speed gate driver has been selected by 21IC China Electronics Network as the 2019 "Top 10 Power Products Award." The annual award is one of China's most recognized industry benchmarks for identifying the 10 most groundbreaking power products with significant advances in design and technology.the NCP51820 is a technologically advanced solution designed to meet the stringent requirements of driving enhanced GaN devices in off-line, half-bridge power supply topologies.

     The award-winning device offers a number of unique features, including a regulated gate drive output voltage optimized for GaN and separate source and drain pins for EMI noise regulation. The driver offers a short transmission delay of less than 25 ns, and advanced level shifting technology enables a common mode voltage range of -3.5V to +650 V (typical) for high side drives and -3.5V to + 3.5V for low side drives. In addition, the device supports stable dV/dt operation up to 200 V/ns at both output stages of the driver, ensuring robust performance in high-speed switching applications.

     GaN technology has the potential to provide lower switching losses and higher power density, but realizing these benefits depends on having GAN-optimized gate drive circuits with robust protection characteristics. In order to adequately protect the GaN power transistor gate from overvoltage stress, both driver stages of the NCP51820 use dedicated regulators to precisely maintain the amplitude of the gate-source drive signal. The NCP51820 from ON Semiconductor also provides important protection features such as independent undervoltage lock (UVLO), bias voltage to monitor the device operating voltage (VDD) and drive bias at the high voltage supply end (VDDH) and low voltage supply end (VDDL), and thermal shutdown based on the device's bare chip junction temperature.

     Ryan Zhan, Director of Marketing and Applications at ON Semiconductor, said, "We are proud to have been recognized by the 21IC jury for the advanced and unique features of our NCP51820. Due to rising energy costs and limited available space, the demand for smaller, more energy-efficient power solutions continues to grow. "Our NCP51820 breaks the limits of traditional isolated half-bridge gate drivers and integrates optimized GaN gate drivers to achieve the simplest and most cost-effective solution based on GaN."