Reduction of Parasitic Effects in PCB Connection Paths to Improve the Switching Performance of GaN eHEMT

Abstract:
To reduce switching losses, modern semiconductors like GaN eHEMT already achieve switching speeds of 100 V/ns and more. Thus, higher switching frequencies are possible and higher power densities are achieved due to smaller volume of peripheral components. To avoid unwanted effects such as resonant oscillations or excessive voltage levels across transistors, parasitic elements of PCB traces must be minimized. The reduction of such elements in the transistor connection paths and the impact on switching performance is discussed in this paper. The improvements are quantified by analytical calculations, FEA and verified in experiments.