Achieve high efficiency and power density with flexible low-side gate driver products

TI Korea (CEO Kent Jeon, www.ti.com/ww/kr ) February 9, 2012 – TI has released a low-side gate driver for MOSFETs and Gallium-Nitride (GaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) in high-density power converters. The new LM5114 can drive GaN FETs and MOSFETs in low-side applications such as synchronous rectifiers or power factor converters. This product family, which includes the industry's first 100V half-bridge GaN FET driver LM5113 released in 2011, provides a complete isolated DC/DC conversion driver solution for high-power GaN FETs and MOSFETs used in high-performance communications, networking, and data center applications. (For samples, evaluation boards, and more information on this product, please visit www.ti.com/gan-pr )

The LM5114 can drive both standard MOSFETs and GaN FETs using independent sink and source outputs with a 5V supply voltage. This device features a high 7.6A peak turn-off current capacity required for high-power applications utilizing large or parallel FETs. Additionally, the increased pull-down strength enables proper driving of GaN FETs. By providing independent source and sink outputs, diodes are not required in the driver path, and rise and fall times can be strictly controlled.

At the Applied Power Electronics Conference and Expo (APEC) held in Orlando, Florida, from February 6 to 8, TI showcased a family of FET driver products, including the new LM5114 and LM5113 in micro SMD packages, the UCC27511 low-side gate driver scheduled for release in March as a pin-compatible product, and other products designed to fully leverage the full potential of GaN FET technology. APEC is one of the industry's major exhibitions, attended by power semiconductor experts.

Key Features and Benefits of the LM5114 Low Side Gate Driver
• Achieves high efficiency through optimized rise and fall times enabled by independent source and sink outputs.
• Supports various types of applications with a single +4V to +12V power supply
• 0.23Ω Open-Drain, Pull-Down, and Sink outputs prevent unintended turn-on
• Maximizing voltage variation/DT tolerance with respect to time variation for 7.6A/1.3A peak sink/source driver currents
• Reduces dead time loss through delay matching between inverted and non-inverted inputs
• Maintains enhanced efficiency while enabling high switching frequencies with a rated propagation delay of 12ns.
• Up to 14V logic input possible regardless of VCC
• Operating temperature range of -40°C to +125°C