News: Microelectronics
2 November 2023
QPT appoints GaN specialist
QPT of Cambridge, UK says it has expanded its team with the addition of another GaN expert, Tony Astley.
Astley joins QPT as a business advisor. Prior to the appointment, he was director of EMEA sales at GaN Systems Inc for nine years, and before that he was at Texas Instruments in several senior sales roles for twenty-nine years.
Photo: Tony Astley.
“Sometimes a technology comes along that requires us to rethink what is possible. QPT’s revolutionary approach to power conversion, unleashes the full potential of GaN and opens up vast new markets for which there is no current solution. Having worked with GaN for nine years, I understand the market needs and I also know that much of the market does not currently realise the amazing benefits that this unleashed GaN could bring to their applications. QPT’s next generation GaN solution is an elegant and revolutionary way for customers to quickly and easily get the absolute maximum benefits of this remarkable technology.”
Rob Gwynne, founder and CEO of QPT, said, “We have created a breakthrough technology that solves a massive problem in power electronics by enabling GaN to be run at high switching speeds to deliver its promised power savings without the problems of RF and overheating that currently limit it to speeds of 100KHz. These challenges mean that SiC is often viewed as the preferred choice for future high-speed, high-power applications. Our technology changes that future to one based on GaN and Tony’s extensive sales contacts and experience will help us rapidly get the story out there.”
Established in 2020 as an independent power electronics company, QPT specialises in the delivery of high-performance, efficient, and cost-effective solutions to solve the challenges of designing with gallium nitride transistors. QPT technology unlocks the potential of GaN to provide huge power savings across a wide range of electrical devices.
GaN transistors are the future of power electronics due to their ability to operate at higher frequencies for switching on and off, says the firm. A slow switching transition wastes energy because, during the switching time, when the transistor is neither on nor off, it dissipates huge amounts of power, resulting in energy losses and overheating issues. The higher the switching speed, the less time is spent in transition, and the less energy is lost. GaN transistors can quickly transition from on to off at 1-2ns instead of 20-50ns for Si and SiC transistors. However, achieving maximum performance is challenging in many high-voltage, high-power applications without significant RF interference issues or overheating.
QPT says that its qGaN module solution enables the GaN transistors to be run at their full potential of up to 20 MHz with nanosecond switching to deliver better operational precision. QPT’s technology in a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) enables motors to be driven at up to 99.7% efficiency at peak load with hardly any decrease in efficiency at lower loads. This is a challenge for conventional designs today, where the efficiency can drop off rapidly at lower loads. In addition to superior efficiency, the higher convertor frequency significantly reduces the size and weight of the power electronics, by 10x or more, as well as reducing the manufacturing costs due to the removal of expensive filters that are normally required to protect the motor. Application areas include heat pumps, industrial motors, HVAC systems and Electric Vehicles.
