New GaN power IC packages deliver enhanced thermal performance

Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD), the company that develops energy-efficient GaN-based power devices that make greener electronics possible, has announced two new packages for the company’s ICeGaN family of GaN power ICs that supply enhanced thermal performance and simplify inspection. The packages are extremely rugged, reliable, and variants of the well-proven DFN style.

Developed for the company, the DHDFN-9-1 (Dual Heat-spreader DFN) is a thin, dual-side cooled package with a small, 10mm x 10mm footprint and wettable flanks to simplify optical inspection. It offers low thermal resistance (Rth(JC) and can be operated with bottom-side, top-side and dual-side cooling, providing flexibility in design and outperforming the often-used TOLT package in top-side and, especially, dual-side cooled configurations. The DHDFN-9-1 package has been designed with dual-gate pinout to enable optimal PCB layout and simple paralleling, allowing customers to easily address applications up to 6kW.

The BHDFN-9-1 (Bottom Heat-spreader DFN) is a bottom-side cooled package, also with wettable flanks for easy inspection. Thermal resistance is 0.28K/W, matching or exceeding other leading devices. Measuring 10mm x 10mm, the BHDFN is smaller than the commonly-used TOLL package yet shares a similar footprint, hence a common layout with TOLL-packaged GaN power ICs is possible for ease of use and evaluation.

Nare Gabrielyan, product marketing manager, CGD, said: “These new packages are part of our strategy to enable customers to use our ICeGaN GaN power ICs at higher power levels. Servers, data centres, inverters/motor drives, micro-inverters and other industrial applications are all beginning to enjoy the power density and efficiency benefits that GaN brings, but they are also more demanding. Therefore, it is essential for such applications that devices are also rugged and reliable, and easy to design in. These attributes are inherent in ICeGaN and are supported and extended by the new packages.”

Improving thermal resistance performance has several benefits. First, more power output is available at the same RDS(on). Devices also run at cooler temperatures for the same power, so less heatsinking is needed, producing reduced system costs. Lower operating temperatures also lead to higher reliability and longer lifetimes. Finally, if cost is the constraint for the application, designers can employ a lower-cost part with a higher RDS(on) and still attain the required power output.

The new packages will be shown for the first time at the PCIM exhibition, booth #7 643, on 11-13th June 2024.