A GaN Driver IC With a TDC-Based Dead-Time Controller For GaN DC-DC Buck Converters

This paper presents a gallium nitride (GaN) driver IC with time-to-digital converter (TDC)-based dead-time optimization technique for GaN-based synchronous Buck converters. The proposed TDC-based dead time controller (TDTC) is used to optimize the dead time and minimize the reverse conduction loss of a GaN-based half-bridge DC-DC converter. Implemented in a $0.18-\mu \mathrm{m}5 -\mathrm{V}$ BCD process, the GaN Driver with the proposed TDTC improves power efficiency of the 10MHz GaN-based synchronous Buck converter by approximately 2.4% (@2A) despite a large load current variation.