Resonant Gate Driver for a Normally-On GaN HEMT

Wide bandgap semiconductors such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride (GaN) are promising materials for next-generation power devices. A normally ON GaN-based high-electron-mobility transistor (GaN HEMT) is fabricated for power electronic converters. However, the power consumption in the previously proposed gate drive circuit increases when the GaN HEMT is used for higher frequency operations; a new gate drive circuit with a lower power consumption for the normally ON GaN HEMT is essential. In this paper, a new resonant gate drive circuit, most suitable for the GaN HEMT we had fabricated, is proposed. The validity and the considerable practicability of the proposed resonant gate drive circuit are demonstrated by the experimental results.