Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

It is very important to reduce power loss and size of the switching power supplies used in new and emerging applications, such as: in Power Delivery (PD) adapters for cell phones, tablets, and notebook computers; and in Electric Vehicles (EV). MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor-Field-Effect-Transistor) switches are exclusively used in today's power supplies. MOSFET technology has been developed for over 30 years and its performance has reached its theoretical limit. With MOSFET, the optimal switching frequency is limited to 200 500 kHz for low power application (such as 65W) and to 50 100 kHz for high power application (such as 1,000 5,000W output power). GaN (Gallium Nitride) switches have been developed in recent years as a next generation switching device with the promise of replacing MOSFETs. GaN switches have much lower conduction loss and lower switching loss. My research has concluded that a GaN switch can achieve the most performance improvement over MOSFET when it is used in resonant converters. However, to realize the potential of this new technology, we need to solve one major limitation of resonant converters: narrow voltage gain range. When the input voltage and output voltage variation range is large, such as larger than 2:1, the performance of current resonant converters is significantly compromised. The proposed research program will develop a breakthrough power supply control technology, called Power Cycle Modulation (PCM), using GaN switches and resonant converters, to: (1) significantly increase the efficiency and power density of switching power supplies, by (2) achieving peak efficiency operation over very wide input and output voltage variation range, such as 10:1, so as to (3) produce power supply designs with unprecedented high efficiency and high power density of switching power supplies. The revolutionary PCM technology developed in this research program will reduce: (1) the size of PD adapter for cell phones, tablet, and notebook computers by 5 times and the power loss by 2.5 times; (2) the size of the DC DC converter used in EVs by 3 times and the power loss by 2 times. The technology will help Canadian power supply companies, such as Magna International (major player for EV power), Delta-Q (EV power), AMD power division in Toronto, Murata Power Solutions (communication power), to stay in world leading positions in their field. The technologies optimized for GaN switch applications will also assist Canada in maintaining its position as the world leader in GaN switch design, manufacturing, and sales through companies such as GaN Systems, in Ottawa. Finally, it will support job creation and train HQPs to fill these positions. Twenty two HQPs trained in this program and more HQPs to be trained in the follow-up NSERC projects will transfer the newly-created technologies into new products by the above mentioned Canadian companies, and help secure their world leading positions.