Case Study: Transphorm achieves validated, low-EMI, high-efficiency GaN power-supply designs with Keysight co-simulation tools

Transphorm Details Know-how around Circuit Design and Associated Layouts

Transphorm, a developer of normally-off GaN power transistors, faced the challenge of getting its fast-switching GaN devices reliably into commercial power supplies. The devices offer major benefits (very low gate charge, output capacitance and reverse-recovery charge) but their very fast dv/dt and di/dt (rise times as short as ~7 ns) make designs highly sensitive to parasitic inductance, EMI and catastrophic device failure unless layouts and verification methods suppress source inductance to ~2–3 nH and control ringing.

To address this, Transphorm collaborated with Keysight to develop circuit/layout co‑simulation methods and encouraged a staged approach—start with a simplified high‑frequency pattern model and progress to precision EM/circuit co‑simulation using Keysight’s ADS. Keysight’s co‑simulation workflow produced simulation results that agreed well with measurements, enabling Transphorm to verify layouts that mitigate ringing and EMI, reduce risk of device breakage, and realize the higher-efficiency, smaller power supplies made possible by GaN.

Transphorm