To achieve professional high sound quality and 96% power efficiency, EPC's demonstration board uses gallium nitride field-effect transistors

     The 150 W, 8 Ω Class D Audio Amplifier Reference Design (EPC9106) from EPC uses a Bridge-Tied Load (BTL) design and includes four grounded half-bridge output power stage circuits, allowing the design to be upgraded and extended. In this system based on gallium nitride field effect transistors, we minimize or completely remove all elements that can affect the sound quality of a Class D audio system.

     According to Dr. Skip Taylor, co-founder and former CTO of Intersil's D2 Audio: "The power stage of the eGaN FET accurately replicates the Class D pulse width modulation (PWM) signal at high power and with ultra-high linearity. This high linearity reduces the amount of feedback required, resulting in optimal sound quality, providing clear, crisp mid-frequency and high-frequency, and tight, solid low-frequency sound quality."

     The EPC9106 demo board features the EPC2016eGaN FET and is equipped with a Texas Instruments gate driver (LM5113) specifically designed for eGaN FET. The demo board demonstrates that high sound quality can be achieved in a small size due to the high frequency switching performance of the eGaN FET. With this efficiency advantage, the EPC9106 demo board can be designed to eliminate heat sinks, reduce the chance of EMI/EMC radiation emissions and reduce the overall cost of the system.

     The power module of the EPC9106 demo board already contains gallium nitride field-effect transistors, drivers, inductors and input/output capacitors in an extremely compact layout (2.1 mm x 1.6 mm). Although the EPC9106 reference design is small in size, it can achieve 96% efficiency at 150 W and 8 Ω, and 92% efficiency at 250 W and 4 Ω.