For GaN power semiconductor devices, a key characteristic that has to be taken into consideration is the voltage drop of the GaN FET while it is operating in reverse conduction mode. While the GaN FET does not have a body diode that is inherent in the silicon FET, it does still have the ability to conduct current in the reverse direction with behavior that is similar to a diode. When conducting in the reverse direction, the source-drain voltage of the GaN FET can be quite large. Thus, to reduce the dead-time losses and maximize efficiency, the dead time was set to a value of approximately 25 ns. Based on the selected value, Equation 8 can be used to calculate the resistors needed to attain the desired dead time.

Equation 27.

The standard resistor value of 20.5 kΩ was selected for both R_PS and R_SP.