News: Microelectronics
16 December 2020
VisIC unveils 8mΩ power GaN switch for EV inverters
VisIC Technologies Ltd of Ness Ziona, Israel – a fabless supplier of power conversion devices based on gallium nitride (GaN) transistor devices for automotive high-voltage applications – has announced its new 8mΩ low-on-resistance (Ron) product for electric vehicle (EV) inverter applications targeted at improving the efficiency and manufacturing cost of electric cars.
“The V8 product doubles the current capabilities and reduces resistance by a factor of 2.5 times over the previous generation of VisIC product,” says Ran Soffer, senior VP sales & marketing. “This will allow our customers to improve their inverter systems to be more efficient in size, power and cost for the target EV market,” he adds.
“The V8 product is another step in our long-term effort to provide a better solution based on our D3GaN technology,” continues Soffer. “The work on the new product is done in close collaboration with our leading customers to bring meaningful improvement to the electric drive system which is the heart of the electrical vehicle. The higher power density can also be achieved in high-power traction invertors.”
The new product is rated at 8mΩ, 650V, 200A and provides significantly lower switching losses versus comparable insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) or silicon carbide (SiC) devices for the same current range. Customers can integrate the new die into both discrete packages and power modules with a variety of interconnect options. The new technology enables power loss savings particularly in drive-cycle tests for high-current electric vehicle inverter systems, VisIC says.
Manufacturing a single die with a high current is a known challenge for wide-bandgap technologies (WBG), such as SiC and GaN, versus ubiquitous silicon dies, notes the firm. The development of 200A GaN dies has been made possible due to the design of the D3GaN platform as well as the manufacturing expertise of Taiwan-based foundry manufacturing partner TSMC. This will enable electric vehicles to benefit from the high-efficiency technology of GaN, leading to more cost-effective EV cars, adds VisIC.
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