News: Microelectronics
26 April 2021
Navitas’ GaN power ICs debut in industrial applications at Electronica China
Navitas Semiconductor of El Segundo, CA, USA debuted its GaNFast power ICs in a wide range of industrial applications at the Electronica China 2021 show in Shanghai (14-16 April), which was attended by almost 50,000 participants and more than 1100 electronics companies (including Xiaomi, TE Connectivity, Honeywell and other tier-1 manufacturers). The Navitas booth had over 1200 visitors, says the firm.
GaN is reckoned to run up to 20x faster than silicon, and enables up to 3x more power or 3x faster charging in half the size and weight, with up to 40% energy savings. Founded in 2014, Navitas introduced what it claimed to be the first commercial GaN power ICs, which monolithically integrate GaN power field-effect transistors (FETs) with drive, control and protection circuits, enabling faster charging, higher power density and greater energy savings for mobile, consumer, enterprise, eMobility and new energy markets.
Navitas says that more than 75 customer projects are in mass production with its GaN, including Xiaomi, Lenovo, Dell, OPPO and Amazon, and over 150 customer projects in development.
The industrial examples span a broad range, from a 50W fast-acting smart circuit breaker, to a 1200W server power supply. A 500W portable power station (DC-AC inverter) was shown with over 98% efficiency, and the world’s highest-power 1kW 400V-input ‘quarter brick’ DC-DC converter from Density Power was displayed at the booth and featured in a technical talk.
At the International Power Electronics Innovation Forum, senior application director Lin Dong presented ‘The Future of Power: High-Frequency Systems Enabled by GaN’ to more than 500 attendees, plus others via live-stream. Lin Dong discussed how advanced engineers had been frustrated by old silicon technology, and were now introducing new, high-frequency topologies using GaN to deliver up to 6x more power in industrial applications.
“From our strong position in the mobile fast-charger market, Electronica China was the perfect venue for Navitas to demonstrate expansion into the industrial market, with a variety of AC-DC, DC-DC and DC-AC applications over a broad power range,” comments Stephen Oliver, VP of corporate marketing & investor relations. “When you add renewables, data-center and electric vehicle (EV)/eMobility markets, GaN is projected to address markets valued at over $13bn by 2026 and, looking ahead with an eye on the health of our world, GaN can impact up to 2.6Gtons of CO2 reduction in 2050.”
Navitas ships 13 millionth GaNFast Power ICs with zero failures
