News: Microelectronics
21 March 2023
Navitas surpasses 75 million GaN power shipments
Gallium nitride (GaN) power IC and silicon carbide (SiC) technology firm Navitas Semiconductor of Torrance, CA, USA has surpassed the milestone of shipping more than 75 million high-voltage GaN units.
Founded in 2014, Navitas introduced what it claimed to be the first commercial GaN power integrated circuits. Entering mass production in 2018, its proprietary GaNFast power ICs monolithically integrate GaN power and GaN drive plus control and protection circuits to enable faster charging, higher power density and greater energy savings for mobile, consumer, enterprise, eMobility and new energy markets. Next, GaNSense power ICs added autonomous sensing and fast control, with single and half-bridge portfolios. Now, new GaNSense Control ICs combine high-voltage GaN power ICs with high-speed, low-voltage silicon system controllers for even higher integration, ease-of-use and system performance.
Navitas is addressing a 2 billion unit per year mobile fast, and now ultra-fast, charging market opportunity, with over 240 end-customer chargers reaching production. All of the top 10 mobile OEMs are in production or development with Navitas, including Dell, Samsung, Lenovo, LG, Xiaomi, Asus and OPPO, plus a broad range of after-market companies such as Anker, Belkin, Baseus and many more. As smartphone power demand has increased — driven by larger screens, bigger batteries, and 5G functionality — users have insisted on faster charging and ultra-portability. Now, smartphones such as Realme’s GT3 charge from 0–100% in just 9 minutes 30 seconds using a GaNFast 240W charger with power density of more than 2.4W/cc.
As millions of GaN ICs were shipped, Navitas introduced the world’s only 20-year limited warranty, heralding GaN’s entry into higher-power, more demanding applications, such as home appliances, data centers, solar, energy storage and electric vehicles (EV).
Navitas says that its dedicated Data Center Design Center has created a series of complete, multi-kW platform designs for AC-DC supplies that exceed Europe’s strict ‘Titanium-plus’ high-efficiency standards, are half the size and lower cost than legacy silicon solutions. This performance has been confirmed by customers such as Compuware.
In home appliance and industrial markets, motor drives can be made more efficient, smaller and lighter by using GaN in applications such as vacuum cleaners, refrigerator compressors, washing machines and dryers. A typical example is the 400W drive using three GaNSense half-bridge power ICs, with over 70% reduction in power loss.
For residential solar inverters, GaN can bring an estimated 25% system cost saving versus legacy silicon due to high-frequency operation and integration. In parallel, Navitas’ GeneSiC silicon carbide MOSFETs are already in mass production for higher-power commercial string inverters, with customers such as Germany-based KATEK.
Navitas’ SiC is also shipping into the EV market, and Navitas’ GaN is in development for multi-kW on-board chargers (OBC) and DC–DC converters. For ‘Vehicle-to-everything’ (V2x) — i.e. using an EV to provide power to other loads, whether a home, clinic or other vehicle — Navitas’ EV Design Center platform designs include a 6.6kW ‘3-in-1’ design, with consolidated bi-directional OBC and DC–DC functions, that achieves up to 17% energy savings and a 1.6x increase in power density versus competing solutions.
“Next-gen GaNFast technology was the catalyst for a major upgrade in power electronics, and enabled our IPO within seven years of founding,” says co-founder & CEO Gene Sheridan. “We see a GaN opportunity of $13bn/year by 2026. Our mission is to ‘Electrify Our World’ and, as each GaN chip sold saves 4kg of CO2, we’ve so far saved over 150,000 tons of CO2 versus legacy silicon chips.”
Navitas’ Q4 revenue up 68% year-on-year, boosted by acquisitions
Navitas’ GeneSiC MOSFETs used in KATEK’s 4.6kW Steca solar inverters
Navitas acquiring remaining stake in silicon control IC JV
Navitas acquires GeneSiC, accelerating entry into EV, solar and energy storage markets by 2-3 years
Navitas acquires VDD Tech to expand high-power, next-gen semiconductor capabilities
