Low-Side GaN driver is ideal for high-speed LiDAR and TOF applications

The LMG1020 gallium nitride (GaN) driver from Texas Instruments is now available from Mouser. The single, low-side driver allows efficient, high-performance designs in speed-critical applications such as time-of-flight laser drivers, facial recognition, augmented reality, LiDAR, and class E wireless chargers. The device drives GaN FETs and logic-level MOFSETs, allowing propagation delays of just 2.5ns and minimum pulse width of 1ns. The device’s drive strength is independently adjustable for pull-up and pull-down edges by attaching external resistors between the gate and OUTH and OUTL, respectively. The robust driver highlights over-temperature protection and under-voltage lockout to defend against overload and fault conditions, as well as common-mode transient immunity of more than 300V/ns, producing industry-leading system-noise immunity. The device is housed in a 0.8mm x 1.2mm WCSP package, which minimises gate loop inductance and maximises power density in high-frequency applications. The minuscule size allows designers to reduce component count and decrease power supply size by up to 80%. The driver provides an adjustable dead-time control feature to give enhanced efficiency for applications such as Class D audio amplifiers, DC-DC converters, and motor drives.