Investigation of the Heat Performance of the Half-Bridge Development Board With Gan Power Devices

Abstract

GaN FET switches have opened new horizons in power electronics converters due to their small package size and their ability to provide high operating voltage-current values at higher switching frequencies. This study presents the finite element method (FEM) based thermal model of EPC2215 (VDS=200V, ID=32A, RDS(on)=8m) GaN FET switches produced by EPC company in small package sizes. Firstly, the test procedures determined by the JEDEC standards have been applied to the established FEM-based model. The thermal resistances of the switch from junction to case, junction to ambient, and junction to board have all been estimated using the FEM-based simulation model and compared with the thermal resistance values given in the datasheet. Afterwards, the thermal model of the EPC9099 half-bridge development board that uses EPC2215 switches has been developed. The power loss values given in the datasheet have been applied to the thermal model. As a result of the simulation, the regions where the development board was subjected to thermal stress were identified. Finally, the thermal map results obtained by the simulation have been compared with the thermal camera readings captured during experiments.