Pulse quietening at source for higher-frequency power and signal switching

今天的便携式微电子系统，如移动电话，需要高能效来延长电池寿命。它们还需要紧凑的电子设备。将这两个要求结合起来，就会产生与电源有关的问题，因为这意味着更大的小型化、高转换效率和高功率密度。使用硅基DC/DC转换器限制了这些改进的程度。我们打算利用一种新的氮化镓晶体管技术来开发更小、更高效的电源。具体来说，我们将采用这种新技术生产10W的电源，具有高电压转换系数，并将其集成到现代微电子封装中。实现这一目标的唯一途径是在令人难以置信的高开关频率（bbb100 MHz）下运行新电源，这比目前的电源快10-100倍。然后，该项目围绕着解决以下挑战：1)如何在非常高的频率下运行这种电源；2)如何将其集成到一个小型的、现代化的微电子封装中。我们预计关键的挑战是高开关速度产生的不可接受的电磁发射，以及精确控制电路阻抗的需要，因为电路阻抗变得越快开关越重要。我们将通过部署一种先进版本的驱动脉冲整形技术来解决这些挑战，我们称之为“脉冲静音”，并通过使用现代集成技术，包括创建一个定制芯片来控制新的电源。我们的方法是创建几个原型，以越来越高的速度运行，从1MHz到100mhz。我们将创建关于驱动电源晶体管和测量输出的最有效方法的模型和理论，以及进一步我们的脉冲静音知识和应用。

Today's portable microelectronic systems, such as mobile telephones, require high energy efficiencies to further battery life. They also require compact electronics. Combining these two requirements poses a problem with relation to their power supplies, since it implies greater miniaturisation, high conversion efficiencies and high power densities. Using silicon-based DC/DC converters places limits on how far these improvements can go. We intend to make use of a new gallium-nitride transistor technology to develop smaller, more efficient power supplies. Specifically, we will produce a 10W power supply in this new technology, with a high voltage conversion factor, and integrate it inside a contemporary microelectronics package. The only way that this will work is to operate the new power supply at incredibly high switching frequencies (>100 MHz), which is 10-100 times faster than today's power supplies. The project then revolves around solving the challenges of: 1) how to operate such a power supply at very high frequencies; 2) how to integrate it into a small, modern, microelectronics package. We expect key challenges to be the creation of unacceptable electromagnetic emissions from the high switching speeds, and the need to accurately control the impedances of the circuit, since circuit impedances become more significant the faster one switches.We will solve the challenges by deploying an advanced version of a drive-pulse shaping technique that we call "pulse quietening", and by using modern integration techniques, including the creation of a custom chip to control the new power supply. Our method is to create several prototypes, running at increasingly high speeds, from 1MHz up to 100 MHz. We will create models and theories about the most efficient way to drive the power supply transistors and measure the outputs, as well as furthering our knowledge and application of pulse quietening.