A technical paper, with detailed specification, was recently presented describing Alphacore’s radiation-hard, compact, low-mass, hybrid GaN and CMOS integrated module DC-DC converter with an input voltage of up to 14V regulated down to an output voltage of 1.5V, with 6A maximum load current. The converter exhibits greater than 70% efficiency. Discrete GaN transistors are used for the power stage, and the controller circuitry and power device drivers are integrated on a 0.35um CMOS chip. Radiation hardening by design (RHBD) techniques have been employed to meet TID levels greater than 150 megarad (Si). This work presents the design and successful measurement results of the custom-designed CMOS driver/controller integrated circuit (IC) and the entire DC-DC converter module that uses this IC.
This DC-DC converter is ideally suited for Large High Energy Physics experiments, such as the detectors of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which are currently driving the development of higher radiation hardness, smaller form factor and more efficient powering schemes to handle the increase of power demanded by upgraded high-density front-end electronics boards.
