eGaN® FETs in High Frequency Resonant Converters

Distributed power systems are prevalent in telecommunications, networking, and high-end server applications and generally utilize a 48 V bus voltage adopted from the telecom industry. From the 48 V bus, a number of isolated point of load (POL) converters power the end loads, with isolation being required for safety. The traditional distributed power architecture (DPA), shown in figure 1(a), uses AC/DC front end converters to deliver the 48 V bus voltage. From the 48 V bus voltage, a number of regulated isolated DC/DC POL converters are used to deliver the required voltage and power to the individual loads. As communications, networking, and high-end server systems have become more complex, the voltages and currents demanded by the growing number of loads have increased significantly [1]. Having a large number of regulated 48 V isolated DC/DC POL converters to power these systems significantly increases the cost, volume, and complexity of the system.