Thermal Boundary Analysis for High-Power-Density GaN-Based Chargers

GaN-based AC/DC chargers for consumer electronics are becoming the standard. Their popularity is due to a 50% reduction in size and weight. Accompanying the reduction in size comes a design challenge regarding thermal management. With the growing demands for smaller electronics, it is essential to minimize losses to overcome the thermal challenges. Due to low on-resistance Rds(on) and fast switching speed, GaN enhancement-mode high electron mobility transistors (e-HEMTs) are the optimal solutions for high power density. They maintain high efficiency in various applications, including consumer electronics. This paper studies state-of-the-art power density trends and investigates thermal boundary analysis for achieving high power density. In addition, a multi-objective optimization procedure is briefly explained to meet high power density and high efficiency. The capability of GaN e-HEMTs to alleviate thermal boundaries is verified through simulations and experiments. Thermal simulations are conducted using ANSYS ICEPAK 2021 R1.