As Systems designers work hard to squeeze more and more features in less board space, the power delivery sections are becoming increasingly complex. The current mature VRM designs based on Silicon FET are hardly meeting the requirements of the day. One of the promising technologies touted to solve this conundrum of space and performance constraints is GaN FET. However, many engineers will be hesitant to design very high frequency GaN VRM’s from the ground up. This paper evaluates the steps required to modify existing Si-FET designs for use with eGaN devices. The paper also compares the expected performance of GaN vs Si in linear and switching regulator topologies and covers some of the measurement challenges as well.
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