Panasonic to start mass production of GaN Power Transistor & drivers

Panasonic Corporation today announced that it will start mass production of a high-speed gate driver (AN34092B) optimized for driving its GaN power transistor X-GaN in November 2016. The company will also start mass production of two types of X-GaN (PGA26E07BA and PGA26E19BA) and provide solutions in combination with high-speed gate drivers.

GaN is one of the next generation semiconductor compounds that can achieve space and energy savings when applied to transistors used in various power units. A gate driver is required to drive a transistor; however, general gate drivers for conventional silicon (Si) transistors cannot exploit the potential of GaN transistors since the gate structure of GaN transistors is different from that of Si transistors.

The new high-speed gate driver (AN34092B) helps our X-GaN easily and safely achieves high-speed switching performance. It can drive transistors at high frequencies of up to 4 MHz and integrates the active miller clamp function that prevents malfunction during high-speed switching. X-GaN achieves a 600 V breakdown enhancement mode through our unique technology and features high-speed switching and low on-resistance. The combination of X-GaN and dedicated high-speed gate drivers will contribute to significant space and energy savings of various power conversion units for industrial and consumer use.

X-GaN and dedicated high-speed gate drivers are suitable for various applications such as 100 W to 5 kW power supply units, inverters, data centers, mobile base stations, consumer electronics, audio-visual equipment, industrial and medical devices.

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