Power


Rather than using silicon MOSFETs, BrightLoop selected EPC’s enhancement-mode GaN FETs to support operation at 600 kHz – substantially above the switching frequencies typically associated with comparable high- power silicon converters.


“Our initial selection for this design was the EPC2302,” said BrightLoop. “We chose it for its exceptionally low RDS(on)


, which is


critical for reducing conduction losses at high currents.”


According to BrightLoop, thermal performance was equally important. The thermally enhanced package helped improve heat extraction while the higher breakdown voltage expanded the converter’s safe low- voltage operating range.


The company is now validating EPC2361 devices to further improve power density and reduce conduction losses.


“We are currently validating the EPC2361, which offers an even lower RDS(on)


, enabling


us to achieve higher power density with further reduced losses,” BrightLoop added. The move to GaN introduced benefits extending far beyond efficiency gains. “The significant reduction in parasitic capacitances offered by GaN technology compared to traditional Silicon MOSFETs has been a major system-level differentiator,” said BrightLoop. “It enables us to increase the switching frequency from the typical 100–300 kHz range up to 600 kHz and beyond.”


Higher switching frequencies reduce passive component volume, enabling more compact magnetics and higher overall power density. Equally important, faster switching enables tighter digital control loops and significantly improved transient response. “From a control standpoint, the higher switching frequency provides a much faster dynamic response, allowing the converter to handle transient events with superior bandwidth and agility,” BrightLoop said. A switching frequency of 600 kHz in conjunction with high-bandwidth real-time digital control ensures stability over extreme conversion ratios. The ultra-fast switching speed enables us to reach a high control loop bandwidth. This enables our digital controller to react dynamically to high dv/dt and di/dt events. This ensures accurate regulation, high transient response and smooth bidirectional transitions with no danger of instability or control saturation.


Co-engineering reliability at high dv/dt


Wide-bandgap adoption introduces new challenges alongside its advantages. Faster switching transitions increase dv/dt and di/


www.cieonline.co.uk


Figure 2: EPC2361 – enhancement mode power transistor features (Source: EPC)


dt stress, making reliability increasingly dependent on layout parasitics, thermal design, and gate-drive optimization rather than nominal semiconductor ratings alone. To address this, EPC and BrightLoop collaborated during the design phase rather than after hardware completion. “Prior to final PCB layout and schematic validation, BrightLoop engaged in a collaborative design review with EPC’s engineering team,” BrightLoop explained. “This joint effort focused on optimizing the gate driver circuitry, selecting appropriate magnetic components for high frequency operation, and defining the optimal switching speeds.”


This co-engineering process proved particularly valuable for ensuring robustness under worst-case operating conditions. “Because device reliability in extreme operating environments is heavily influenced by layout parasitics and thermal dissipation, EPC’s feedback was invaluable in fine- tuning our thermal and electrical margins,” said BrightLoop.


The collaboration also extended into electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) optimization – often one of the most difficult aspects of high-frequency GaN power conversion.


“To manage the high dv/dt and di/dt transitions inherent to fast GaN switching, extensive PCB layout optimization was conducted to minimize parasitic power loop inductance,” BrightLoop explained. “Lowering this loop inductance significantly curtails voltage ringing and electromagnetic radiation.”


BrightLoop employed advanced PCB technologies, including micro-vias and blind vias, to physically isolate high-power switching loops from gate-driver circuitry, minimizing electromagnetic coupling and preserving gate-drive integrity.


Stability in real machines, not ideal benches


Laboratory conditions rarely reflect real deployment environments. In electrified vehicles and industrial systems, converters must interact with batteries, long cable harnesses, and dynamic loads capable of introducing instability.


According to BrightLoop, cable parasitics emerged as one of the most important external variables affecting converter behaviour.


“The most critical external parameter affecting system stability is the length of the external cables, which introduces significant parasitic line inductance,” the company said. “This inductance, excited by fast current transients, interacts with the system to create LC resonant circuits that generate severe voltage oscillations and ringing.” To suppress these effects, additional bulk decoupling capacitance becomes essential for damping resonances and stabilizing input and output rails during transient events. Fault handling also reflects the system- level focus of BrightLoop’s architecture. Rather than entering shutdown during overload or short-circuit events, the converter actively regulates current through an ultra- fast inner control loop.


“The BrightLoop converter does not trigger a shutdown or enter a fault state when a short-circuit or overload occurs,” said BrightLoop. “Instead, it utilizes an ultra-fast inner current limiting loop that actively regulates the current at its maximum allowable limit.”


From the point of view of the control theory, this loop is equivalent to an actuator saturation that limits the output to a safe maximum operating current value, without stopping the conversion process. This prevents the converter from tripping and ensures continuous operation while


allowing the system to recover seamlessly as soon as the external fault or overload condition is cleared.


Centralized or distributed power? In the transition to zonal vehicle electrical architectures and higher battery voltages, the role and location of DC-DC conversion is changing too. The system level requirements are expected to have both centralized and distributed high voltage to low voltage conversion strategies co- existing in the system.


In high constrained space and weight applications (e.g. high-performance vehicles) centralized power conversion architectures are often preferred to ease packaging and improve power density. For applications such as aerospace, maritime, and heavy-duty transportation, distributed DC-DC converter architectures may be preferred to increase redundancy, improve fault isolation, and support safety-critical low-voltage networks.


The choice of wide-bandgap technologies in DC-DC power conversion is part of a larger engineering trend: optimizing the performance of a system is not just about swapping out silicon devices. The efficient implementation becomes more and more dependent on the co-optimization of semiconductor devices and switching behaviour, thermal management, PCB layout, electromagnetic compatibility and control strategies.


With the evolution of electrified systems to higher operating voltages and more dynamic load profiles, DC-DC converters are playing an increasingly important role in overall power architecture, enabling energy distribution, subsystem isolation and power management across the platform.


https://epc-co.com Components in Electronics June 2026 21


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