News: Microelectronics
30 April 2021
Navitas GaNFast power ICs used in fast charger for Lenovo’s new Xiaoxin and YOGA laptops
Navitas Semiconductor Inc of El Segundo, CA, USA says that the Lenovo laptops Xiaoxin Air 14, Air 15, Pro 16 plus the YOGA Duet and YOGA 5G (launched on 22 April) feature the YOGA CC 65 (reckoned to be the world’s smallest folding-pin 65W dual USB-C fast charger) using its GaNFast power ICs.
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. 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.
The Xiaoxin-YOGA launch was presented by Lenovo’s Yuezhu Song (director of consumer fan marketing) with product manager Long (Elon) Chen and the fan marketing team hosting a live-stream. Chen and the team displayed a complete Navitas 6”-diameter GaN wafer, containing thousands of GaNFast power IC chips, plus some of the final packaged devices.
The YOGA CC 65’s GaNFast power IC is “extremely compact with unique, integrated, loss-less current sensing which increases efficiency and drives cool operation and high performance,” says Song. “It is precisely because of the Navitas GaNFast chip that the YOGA CC 65 can be very portable and compact.”
The dual USB-C output YOGA CC 65 measures just 50mm x 50mm x 30mm (75cc) with folding AC pins, and weighs just 103g (almost half the size and weight of Apple’s 61W 1x USB-C charger).
Meeting Lenovo’s stringent notebook specifications, the YOGA CC 65W has passed over 30 professional tests and has a very long-life expectancy. According to the notebook’s standard, it must continue to work at full power for more than 8700 hours (10 years).
The small, portable charger also satisfies the fast charging of mobile phones, notebooks and tablets. It supports PD/QC/PPS fast-charging protocols and comes with a 1.5m-long charging cable. Maximum power is 65W worldwide, available from a single USB-C port or power-sharing at 47W+18W for multiple devices.
“GaNFast chips are powerful, with both cool temperature control and fast charging,” says Chen. “As a highly integrated chip, it not only includes GaN power but also GaN drive, control and protection to deliver very good conversion efficiency,” he adds.
“The efficient, robust, easy-to-use GaNFast power ICs make the charger extremely small, light, easy-to-carry, safer and smarter,” says Charles (Yingjie) Zha, Navitas’ China VP & general manager.
This is the first time that Navitas’ GaN chip has been publicly displayed, and is also said to be the first time that Lenovo has publicly highlighted enabling technology at a new charger launch. The initial price of the GaNFast YOGA CC 65W is 119RMB (US$18).
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