The first product introduced in the company’s Power-Thru portfolio, this isolated gate driver creates a single-package solution that drives GaN FETs with up to a 50% smaller footprint and a 40% efficiency improvement compared to competitor offerings.
The global clean-energy movement requires power system designers in automotive and industrial markets to generate, store and use energy more efficiently. Wide-bandgap silicon-carbide (SiC) and gallium-nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs) offer clear efficiency benefits at the system level but often come with integration challenges.
A traditional gate driver implementation requires both an isolated gate driver and a separate isolated power supply. When assembled, connections between the driver, power source and FET can add unwanted noise and create pathways of electromagnetic interference (EMI) that can degrade performance. Mitigating these effects can create design complexity, adding time and cost to a project schedule as well as size and weight to a solution.
Allegro’s patent protected, Power-Thru gate driver (AHV85110) gives engineers and designers access to efficient high-power isolated gate driving technologies that provide multiple system level benefits. The gate driver combinies traditionally separate components - the isolated gate driver and the isolated power supply - into a single, compact and robust package. Allegro’s platform minimises EMI pathways and simplifies integration, resulting in faster time to market, efficiency gains, and production cost savings.
Allegro’s Power-Thru technology enables engineers to:
- Provide more power, more efficiently, using 50% of the design footprint (PCB savings).
- Reduced bill of materials (BOM) count and production cost.
- Eliminate bootstrap circuits and isolated supplies while minimizing common-mode capacitance, which reduces EMI filter design efforts and improves overall efficiency.
- Provide a reliable, scalable design process across platforms by eliminating the need to fully redesign a power module when working with multiple GaN FET suppliers.
