Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD), a fabless, clean-tech semiconductor 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 offer enhanced thermal performance and simplify inspection. Variants of the well-proven DFN style, both packages are extremely rugged and reliable.

Developed for CGD, the DHDFN-9-1 (Dual Heat-spreader DFN) is a thin, dual-side cooled package with a small, 10x10 mm footprint and wettable flanks to simplify optical inspection. It offers low thermal resistance (R_th(JC)) and can be operated with bottom-side, top-side, and dual-side cooling, offering flexibility in design and out-performing 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 facilitate optimal PCB layout and simple paralleling, enabling customers to address applications up to 6 kW with ease.

The BHDFN-9-1 (Bottom Heat-spreader DFN) is a bottom-side cooled package, also with wettable flanks for easy inspection. Thermal resistance is 0.28 K/W, matching or exceeding other leading devices. Measuring 10 x 10 mm, 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 centers, 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 reliable, and easy to design. 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 R_DS(on). Devices also run at cooler temperatures for the same power, so less heatsinking is required, resulting in 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 use a lower-cost part with a higher R_DS(on) and still achieve the required power output.

The new packages will be shown for the first time publicly at the upcoming PCIM exhibition at CGD’s booth #7-643, Nürnberg Messe, Nuremberg, Germany, 11-13 th June 2024.

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