A Fully Integrated Heterogenous Si-CMOS/GaN 500 MHz 6 V-to-18 V Boost Converter Chip

Abstract

This paper presents a fully-integrated 500MHz single-switch resonant boost converter using heterogeneous integrated gallium nitride (GaN) and Si-CMOS. Seeking for high-level of integration with watt-level power delivering capabilities, the high-speed driver circuitries are implemented in Si-CMOS with customized on-chip inductors while the power switches adopt GaN devices. Two chips are co-designed and integrated using standard flip-chip process. In the proof-of-concept, a 500MHz single-switch resonant boost DC/DC converter is implemented, fabricated, and measured. The chip occupies an area of 3mm×3mm. It features V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OUT</sub> /V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in</sub> of 14∼20V/6V and P <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OUT</sub> of 3.98∼4.2W with 50∼100Ω loads. The obtained maximal conversion efficiency of 58% and power density of 460mW/mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> are the highest among the similar fully-integrated state-of-the-arts.