DC-DC Voltage Converters

Alphacore develops DC-DC converters hardened for extreme radiation environments such as space and the inside of particle accelerators

Alphacore Power Management IC where the larger darker area on the right is two big power transistors, and on the left is the control section.

DC-DC Converters Alphacore develops DC-DC converters for the commercial market and for extreme radiation environments such as space and the inside of particle accelerators. CMOS technology Alphacore’s isolated and non-isolated CMOS DC-DC buck Point-of-Load (PoL) converters employ digital hysteresis and are designed for an input up to 60V and output from 1V to 15V. The design has up to 500kHz switching rate with reduced output component sizing. The DC-DC converters are typically radiation-hardened for a TID up to 1Mrad(Si) and are Single Event Latchup (SEL) Immune. Our gate driver ICs are designed to control the gates of external high-speed power devices, including enhancement mode gallium nitride (GaN) FETs. They can enable switching transition speeds in the sub-nanosecond range for high frequency switching applications, reaching operating frequency of 40MHz. They operate from a regulated 5V supply and can support a high side floating supply voltage of 60V. Our phase-shifted-modulation controllers, in single and dual active bridge configurations ICs span from a few tens of Volts to a few thousand Volts and control external silicon carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitrate (GaN) discrete transistors. GaN and SiC driver technology With high-conductivity and super-fast switching GaN, and high voltage SiC technologies,  our gate drivers and DC-DC converters have high-efficiency, high voltage tolerance, small form factor, and, in the radiation hardened version, total ionizing dose (TID) tolerance of up to 1Mrad (Si). Advanced IP development Alphacore is developing leading edge power management technology, from monolithic ICs entirely built with GaN technology, to Cryogenic PMICs driving high-temperature superconductors (HTS) in particle accelerators, and from Stirling engine controllers to resolver-to-digital converters for high resolution rotary angle sensors.

Rad-Hard Solar Array Interfaces

Radiation-Hardened Solar Array Interface to Spacecraft Power System

Alphacore has demonstrated a high-efficiency, radiation-hardened Solar Array Interface (SAI) using GaN switches and CMOS Drivers to enable a dynamic reconfigurable solar array. Our SAI maximizes power extraction from the beginning to end of life of a spacecraft and saves up to 50% of the initial power requirements of satellites. This SAI is capable of operation in Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) for 5 years and Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) for 15 years, with high total radiation dose tolerance and latch-up immunity.