WiPDA 2025
Keynote Presentation: GaN Power Devices for Space: Advancing Motor Drive and DC-DC Conversion Efficiency Beyond Silicon Limits
Presenter: Renee Yawger
This presentation explores how radiation-hardened GaN power devices from EPC Space are transforming motor drive and DC-DC conversion in space systems. Covering canonical converter topologies, key design considerations, and GaN’s superior efficiency and size advantages over silicon, it highlights new device innovations—including integrated HEMT/Schottky solutions and low-voltage HEMTs—enabling compact, high-reliability power systems for next-generation satellites, lunar infrastructure, and on-orbit manufacturing.
Tutorial: How to Project System-Level Reliability by Identifying and Modeling Primary Wearout Mechanisms using Low- and Medium-Voltage GaN HEMTs
Presenter: Shengke Zhang, Ph.D.
Low- and medium-voltage (VDS rating ≤ 200V) GaN high-electron-mobility-transistors (HEMTs) have gained significant traction for advanced applications such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR), DC/DC conversion in AI servers, humanoid robots and space systems. As an emerging technology, accurately projecting system-level reliability under the mission-specific conditions is critical to enabling large-scale adoption. This tutorial presents a methodology for predicting system-level reliability lifetime through the identification and modeling of primary wearout mechanisms responsible for GaN device failures. An example of DC/DC intermediate bus converters (IBC) for AI applications will be discussed in this presentation.
Technical Presentation: Investigation of the Temperature Dependence of Gate Lifetime in Schottky-Type pGaN GaN HEMTs
Main Author: Siddhesh Gajare, Ph.D.
GaN high-electron-mobility-transistors (HEMTs) have been adopted in a variety of applications that operate over a wide temperature range. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly critical to understand the temperature dependence of gate reliability across a broad temperature spectrum. Existing literature reports conflicting trends in temperature dependence of gate lifetime in Schottky-type pGaN gate. Some researchers report an increase in gate lifetime at higher temperatures, indicating a positive dependence1, whereas others observe opposite trends with a negative lifetime dependence2 on temperature. This work presents a comprehensive gate lifetime model that can accurately model the varying temperature dependence of gate lifetime across the full temperature range by primarily incorporating the temperature dependence of impact ionization (I.I.) coefficients and gate leakage current (IGSS).
