Certified by- 7

P OWER electronics appear in nearly every piece of modern electronic hardware, forming anessential conduit from electrical source to load. Portable electronics, an area where a premium is placed on size, weight, and cost, are driving the development of power systems with greater density and better manufacturability. This motivates a push to higher switching frequencies enabling smaller passive components and better integration. To realize these goals this thesis explores devices, circuits, and passives capable of operating efficiently into the VHF regime (30-300 MHz) and their integration into power electronic systems of high power density. A good integrated power MOSFET presages high-density converters. Previous VHF systems were demonstrated with bulky and expensive RF Lateral, Double-Diffused MOSFETs (LDMOSFET). We show that through a combination of layout optimization and safe operating area (SOA) extension integrated devices can achieve near-parity performance to their purpose-built RF discrete cousins over the desired operating regime. A layout optimization method demonstrating a 2x reduction in device loss is presented alongside experimental demonstration of SOA extension. Together the methods yield a 3x reduction in loss that bolsters the utility of the typical (and relatively inexpensive) LDMOS IC power process for VHF converters