Keysight, Transphorm launch power supply reference design

Switched-mode power supplies provide greater efficiency, increased power density and lower overall system costs when using GaN devices.

However, GaN, a high switching speed, high performance wide bandgap semiconductor, can produce voltage spikes that result in detrimental radiated electromagnetic interference.

As a result, optimised layout design and placement of components before building hardware is critical when using GaN.

The new power supply reference design available with Keysight's PathWave Advanced Design System, is a virtual prototype based on Transphorm's 4 kW high efficiency single-phase AC-DC conversion evaluation board. It consists of the component and board models needed for engineers to visualise and optimise the time and frequency domains' behavior of voltages, currents and electromagnetic fields.

"The need for switch-mode power supplies is driving rapid adoption of wide bandgap semiconductors," said Tom Lillig, general manager of Keysight's PathWave Software Solutions division. "The new reference design of Transphorm's high voltage GaN solution will speed time to market of this technology, which is changing how the world powers electronic products."

Keysight's PathWave ADS software provides pre-compliance analysis via a virtual prototype that ensures the intended design configuration performs as intended, eliminating the need to build a virtual workspace.

Virtual prototypes are complementary to physical prototypes, which are the gold standard for compliance and measured characteristics.

However, they can also be expensive and present physical challenges to certain in-house test and measurement protocols. Virtual prototypes are easy to change and can flag device overstress as warning messages during simulation.

The voltage, current and fields can be monitored and corrected at every time step in the simulation. All data is available for analysis including inside a semiconductor package.

"Transphorm looks for partnerships that help our customers close skill gaps, increase design simplicity and reduce time to market," said Philip Zuk, vice president of Worldwide Technical Marketing and North American Sales, Transphorm. "With proper modelling, analysis of any design type prior to physical prototyping is a useful resource. Teaming with Keysight enables us to bring our 4 kW AC-DC power conversion board into a virtual design environment that will be advantageous to product designers."