News: Microelectronics
11 September 2024
QPT appoints Simon Hart as board advisor
Independent power electronics company Quantum Power Transformation (QPT) Ltd of Cambridge, UK — which was founded in 2019 and develops gallium nitride (GaN)-based motor drives — has appointed Dr Simon Hart as an advisor to its board. He is an Honorary Associate Professor and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Nottingham, and holds C-level roles at several technology companies.
Picture: Dr Simon Hart.
“He brings a wealth of experience in scaling up businesses to exploit innovative technologies,” comments QPT’s CEO Rupert Baines. “He also has first-hand experience with electric motors drive platforms from when he was at Emerson Industrial Automation and automotive power management, which is a key area for us, when he was at YASA. He is also very handy at innovative problem solving, with more than 40 patents to his name.”
“Although GaN offers huge potential, QPT identified issues with GaN devices, including thermal management and production of RF interference, which is why SiC [silicon carbide] is seen by the power electronics industry as the way forward for power electronics,” notes Hart. “SiC, in reality, only gives a very short switching frequency range (to around 100kHz) before it hits similar problems, and this limit is related to harmonic losses in electric motors,” he adds.
“The GaN issues are rooted in driving GaN at microwave frequencies, so QPT solved these problems by bringing microwave solutions to power electronics. Their qGaN technology enables GaN to be viable with a huge switching frequency range (1MHz or more) so it can deliver important power savings, for example slashing electric motor VFD electronics losses by up to 80%. This can make a huge impact on reducing the power usage of electric motors, which are an increasingly significant contributor to CO2 production and therefore climate change.”
QPT gains a second GaN Systems co-founder as advisor
QPT appoints Rupert Baines as CEO
