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EPC9173 Demonstration Board
EPC – POWER CONVERSION TECHNOLOGY LEADER | EPC-CO.COM | ©2022 | | 2
DESCRIPTION
The EPC9173 demonstration board is a 3-phase motor drive inverter board featuring the EPC23101 eGaN IC with embedded gate driver function and a
oating power GaN FET with 3.3 mΩ maximum R
DS(on)
, 100 V maximum voltage. Its application can be extended to a Buck, Boost, Half-Bridge, Full Bridge,
or LLC Converters. The EPC9173 uses two integrated circuits for each switch position and can deliver up to 50 Apk (35 A
RMS
) maximum output current.
The switching cell can operate up to 250 kHz PWM switching frequency given appropriate cooling. The EPC9173 contains all the necessary critical
functions circuits to support a complete motor drive inverter including gate drivers, regulated auxiliary power rails for housekeeping supplies, voltage,
and temperature sense, accurate current sense, and protection functions. The various functional blocks are shown in Figure 1. The EPC9173 mates with
an assortment of compatible controllers, supported by various manufacturers leveraging existing resources for quick development purposes, that can
quickly be congured as a motor drive inverter or DC–DC converter.
Figure 1: Photo overview of the EPC9173 board highlighting the main sections
Figure 2. Block diagram of EPC9173 board in BLDC drive example application.
Heatsink mounting (x4)
Motor
connection
Housekeeping
power supply
Current sensing
option setting
Main power
connection
EPC23101
and leg shunts
Hall/encoder
interface
Phase
shunts
Thermal sensor
Bottom side
Top side
Control
connection
HS gate
driver
Jsns1
3V3
5 V
Va
V
IN
Vb
Vc
Ia
Ib
Ic
OCPn
EPC9173
BLDC
motor
To/From
controller
interface
board
GND
Voltage
sense
Current sense
ampliers
V
IN
up
to 80 V
V
IN
Va
HS gate
driver
EPC23101
EPC23101
EPC23101
EPC23101
EPC23101
EPC23101
Jsns2
Vb
Over
Current
Protection
Vc
HV PSU
Jsns3
HS gate
driver
HS gate
driver
HS gate
driver
HS gate
driver
A functional block diagram of the EPC9173 demonstration board is shown in gure 2 that details the phase current sense, phase and DC voltage sense,
the half-bridge power stages, housekeeping power supply and controller interface connection.