Gallium Nitride (GaN) Amplifiers

[JasonRichardCraig]

Has anyone thought of developing an amp using GaN?

 

Gallium Nitride’s exceptionally high electron mobility and low temperature coefficient allows very low RDS(on), while its lateral device structure and majority carrier diode provide exceptionally low QG and zero QRR. The end result is a device that can handle tasks where very high switching frequency, and low on-time are beneficial as well as those where on-state losses dominate.

 

It is a HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor) that can Switch at 10MHZ 200V/ 260A (each transistor)....

 

https://epc-co.com/epc/products/gan-fets-and-ics/epc2304

 

[JasonRichardCraig]

26 minutes ago, JasonRichardCraig said:

Has anyone thought of developing an amp using GaN?

 

Gallium Nitride’s exceptionally high electron mobility and low temperature coefficient allows very low RDS(on), while its lateral device structure and majority carrier diode provide exceptionally low QG and zero QRR. The end result is a device that can handle tasks where very high switching frequency, and low on-time are beneficial as well as those where on-state losses dominate.

 

It is a HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor) that can Switch at 10MHZ 200V/ 260A (each transistor)....

 

https://epc-co.com/epc/products/gan-fets-and-ics/epc2304

 

 

@SteveMeade Just one of these (3mm x 5mm) can put out over 20000 Watts from DC to 400,000Hz.

[Joe X]

The low on resistance of those will make way for less heating and more efficient amp designs, however the real inefficiency is in the speakers and more so in the subs, always being far below 1%. I am hoping for graphene to used in future designs, with subs only 10% efficient a few hundred watts would be enough to achieve what now needs many thousands of watts.

[Turbo598]

FYI,

 

Soundigital already makes amps using Gan Tech.

They build a few 4 channel amps a few years ago and just started making a new line of them.

[Joe X]

 

Impressive this announcement from Infineon:

 

https://gansystems.com/newsroom/class-d-audio-amplifier-at-ces/

 

Showing a 1000W class D audio amp achieving 98% efficiency.

[madeforthis]

Wonder if this will trickle down to more affordable amps soon.