A review of gallium nitride power device and its applications in motor drive

Abstract

Wide band-gap gallium nitride (GaN) device has the advantages of large band-gap, high electron mobility and low dielectric constant. Compared with traditional Si devices, these advantages make it suitable for fast-switching and high-power-density power electronics converters, thus reducing the overall weight, volume and power consumption of power electronic systems. As a review paper, this paper summarizes the characteristics and development of the state-of-art GaN power devices with different structures, analyzes the research status, and forecasts the application prospect of GaN devices. In addition, the problems and challenges of GaN devices were discussed. And thanks to the advantages of GaN devices, both the power density and efficiency of motor drive system are improved, which also have been presented in this paper.

Study of modulation techniques applied to full bridge single-phase inverters based on wide-bandgap semiconductors

“…Switching losses occur when the FET transistor switches from its ohmic zone to the cut-off zone and vice-versa. Due to the lack of reverse recovery charge, the switching losses on GaN devices are less than those of Si and SiC transistors [11]. Switching losses are difficult to measure [12][13] [14], but they can be approximated by…”

Investigation of Normally-Off p-GaN/AlGaN/GaN HEMTs Using a Self-Terminating Etching Technique with Multi-Finger Architecture Modulation for High Power Application

“…Due to the advantages of gallium nitride (GaN) over silicon, GaN-based power devices have recently received widespread attention in power electronics applications as these devices exhibit high breakdown voltage, low on-resistance ( R on ), and fast switching speed [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. The dominant platform for developing commercial GaN power electronic devices is based on lateral heterojunctions (e.g., AlGaN/GaN) grown on large-size, low cost silicon substrates [ 3 ].…”

GaN-based Matrix Converter Design with Output Filters for Motor Friendly Drive System

“…A lateral two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) channel has high electron mobility on AlGaN/GaN heteroepitaxy, which enables fast switching transients with a low capacitance property. To utilize these advantages, recently, AC motor drive systems with WBG devices have been studied [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. In ref.…”