News: Microelectronics
29 July 2022
Navitas COO/CTO presenting tutorial at PowerAmerica 2022
Gallium nitride (GaN) power integrated circuit firm Navitas Semiconductor of El Segundo, CA, USA and Dublin, Ireland says that, on 2 August (1pm eastern time), its chief operating officer/chief technology officer & co-founder Dan Kinzer is presenting the 75-minute tutorial ‘Advancing GaN Power Integration: Efficiency, Reliability & Autonomy’ at the 2022 Wide Band-gap (WBG) Summer Workshop (2–4 August) on North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus in Raleigh, NC, of PowerAmerica, a public–private research initiative established in 2014 between industry, government, national labs and academia dedicated to accelerating the adoption of WBG silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) power electronics.
The presentation covers GaN device fundamentals and Navitas’ proprietary AllGaN process design kit (PDK), before detailing practical applications, and the benefits of integrating GaN power with drive, plus control, sensing and protection, to enable the highest power density, efficiency and reliability.
Established in 2014, PowerAmerica (a member of Manufacturing USA) brings together leading innovators in WBG semiconductors. As a member of PowerAmerica, Navitas provides technical and material input for initiatives to help companies using power semiconductors to upgrade beyond legacy silicon. In return, Navitas has access to resources and relationships contributing to business growth. The tutorial workshop is being held in conjunction with PowerAmerica’s 2022 Annual Meeting.
Since GaN is reckoned to run up to 20x faster than silicon, GaNFast power ICs are said to deliver up to 3x faster charging or 3x more power with up to 40% energy savings in half the size and weight for mobile, consumer, enterprise, eMobility and new energy markets. Founded in 2014, Navitas introduced what it claimed to be the first commercial GaN power ICs. Its proprietary GaNFast power ICs with GaNSense technology integrate GaN power and drive plus sensing, protection and control circuitry to deliver simple, small, fast and efficient power conversion performance.
“GaNSense technology is optimized for revolutionary high-speed, soft-switching topologies such as totem-pole PFC [power factor correction], asymmetric half-bridge and active-clamp flyback,” notes Kinzer. “Loss-less current-sensing delivers the efficiency boost, and 6x faster fault-detection – with ‘detect-to-protect’ in only 30ns – means that systems can now be made as reliable as the GaN power ICs themselves.”
Over 50 million GaN ICs have shipped (with zero reported GaN field-failures) to mobile and consumer customers including Samsung, Dell, Xiaomi, Lenovo, OPPO, Amazon, LG, and Belkin, and GaNFast ICs are now available with a 20-year limited warranty - a critical accelerator for GaN’s adoption into high-reliability data-center, solar and EV markets.
Navitas joins PowerAmerica consortium
Navitas announces first 20-year warranty for GaN ICs
