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LMG3410-HB-EVM: Maximum operating frequency of the HVB EVM GaN evaluation board

Part Number: LMG3410-HB-EVM

Hi,

According to the PDF regarding instructions for the evaluation board for GaN with integrated driver, the recommendation is to keep operating frequency at a maximum of 200kHz.

What are the reasons for this, in particular? It seems that the GaN drivers and devices themselves can operate at a maximum of 1MHz, so why is the board operating frequency limited to 1/5 this maximum switching frequency? Is there something on the board, such as the output inductors, which limit this?

I plan to use these daughterboards, but with a re-designed motherboard - the boards will still be connected via the Milli-max pins but my motherboard will be a resonant converter, which I plan to switch at 1MHz. The output transformer which will be driven by the boards will of course be optimized for this high frequency.

In essence, I am unsure whether this will work because there are some limitations with the board itself even though there are no limitations on the switches themselves.

Please let me know if there is something else at play I need to worry about, or whether with a re-designed motherboard I can push the frequency of the daughterboard higher?

Regards,
Joel

  • Hello Joel,

    Thanks for contacting us. The main reason for the limitation we put on the daughter card is thermal. For hard-switched application, switching at higher switching frequency might cause thermal runaway.

    In case of soft switched application, the board can be used to up to 1MHz. Here's a reference design using the EVM running at 1MHz .

    Please let us know if you have additional questions.

    Regards,