Accurate Measurement of Dynamic on-State Resistances of GaN Devices under Reverse and Forward Conduction in High Frequency Power Converter

Abstract

Because of trapped charges in GaN transistor structure, device dynamic on-state resistance R_\mathrm{DSon} is increased when it is operated in high frequency switched power converters, in which device is possibly operated by zero voltage switching (ZVS) to reduce its turn-on switching losses. When GaN transistor finishes ZVS during one switching period, device has been operated under both reverse and forward conduction. Therefore its dynamic R_\mathrm{DSon} under both conduction modes needs to be carefully measured to understand device power losses. For this reason, a measurement circuit with simple structure and fast dynamic response is proposed to characterize device reverse and forward R_\mathrm{DSon}. In order to improve measurement sensitivity when device switches at high frequency, a trapezoidal current mode is proposed to measure device R_\mathrm{DSon} under almost constant current, which resolves measurement sensitivity issues caused by unavoidable measurement circuit parasitic inductance and measurement probes deskew in conventional device characterization method by triangle current mode. Proposed measurement circuit and measurement method is then validated by first characterizing a SiC-mosfet with constant R_\mathrm{DSon}. Then, the comparison on GaN-HEMT dynamic R_\mathrm{DSon} measurement results demonstrates the improved accuracy of proposed trapezoidal current mode over conventional triangle current mode when device switches at 1 MHz.