Page 22 - PCIM and APEC 2021 - Technical Coverage, eBook

PCIM - DESIGN
The Next Wave of
Gallium Nitride
By Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio, editor-in-chief of Power Electronics News and
European correspondent for EE Times
At PCIM – this year in digital version – several companies have shown their latest innovations. The
GaN power market doubled in 2020 according to Yole's report, highlighting the impressive growth
of smartphone fast chargers and leading the way for telecom and automotive markets.
“In the new GaN Power 2021: Epitaxy, Devices, Applications and Technology Trends report, in the
consumer market, GaN enjoyed a successful year in 2020, thanks to several companies, such as
Xiaomi, Lenovo, Samsung, Realme, Dell and LG, as well as other Chinese aftermarket companies
that adopted GaN technology,” said Ahmed Ben Slimane, PhD, technology and market analyst at
Compound Semiconductors, and Emerging Substrates and Poshun Chiu, technology and market
analyst specializing in Compound Semiconductor and Emerging Substrates at Yole Développement
(Yole).
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PCIM - Design
Yole expects the GaN consumer power supply market to be the main driver, representing more than
60% of market share in 2026. The total GaN device market is forecast to grow from US$46 million
in 2020 to around US$1.1 billion in 2026 with a CAGR of 70%. “GaN is critical to helping meet energy
efficiency initiatives, including the EU Lot 9 requirements for Titanium efficiency power supply
units,” said Paul Wiener, vice president of strategic marketing at GaN Systems.
Alex Lidow, CEO at EPC, highlighted three particular devices: EPC9146, EPC9137, EPC9149. “The
EPC9146 is a 400-W motor drive demonstration. GaN provides the fast switching, small size, and
low cost needed to further reduce the size and weight of BLDC motors, reduce audible noise,
improve torque for faster reaction times, and increase efficiency. The EPC9137 is shown at PCIM for
a GaN-based 3 kW 48-V to 12 V DC-DC converter. The higher switching frequency of GaN results in
a solution that is 35% smaller, it results in 10-W lower inductor DCR losses, and it reduces the cost
of the system by about 20% over the MOSFET solution. The EPC9149 is a 1 kW eGaN FET-based
LLC resonant converter in the 1/8th power brick size for 48-V server applications. Silicon-based
solutions need to be in the ¼ brick format to reach 1 kW! The EPC9149 1 kW LLC resonant converter
achieves 97.6% peak efficiency and 96.5% full-load efficiency,” said Lidow.
GaN Systems announced a few big things in the year, from an industry and product perspective.
“We recently announced shipment of our 20 millionth GaN transistor and a 40X capacity expansion
(completed this year). We announced that GaN, for some applications, is now under $100 (USD).
We introduced a new 650-V, 60-A transistor (GS-065-060-5-T-A) for the automotive market for
wide-ranging applications from OBCs, DC-DC converters, EV traction inverters, and electronic
power steering. It meets our industry-leading AutoQual+ qualification process, providing lifetimes
consistent with the automotive industry requirements,” said Wiener.
Nexperia has announced its latest second-generation GaN technology. With R performance down to
DS(on)
35 mΩ (typical), the new power GaN FETs target single phase AC/DC and DC/DC industrial switched mode
power supplies (SMPS), ranging from 2 kW to 10 kW, especially server and telecoms supplies that must
meet 80 PLUS Titanium efficiency regulations. These devices are also an excellent fit for solar inverters
and servo drives in the same power range. “One of the great things about emerging technologies like
GaN is that they take giant leaps in performance from one generation to the next. All the big wins have
already been achieved in silicon, "there is much more about incremental advances at this point, in the
technology life cycle" said Chris Boyce, marketing and product group director at Nexperia.
EPC’s GaN technology for time-of-flight/LiDAR is used in an increasing array of applications,
from drones to robotics to autonomous vehicles and even vacuum cleaners. Lidow pointed out
that high-density computing, particularly in the 48-V architecture, has taken off, and here GaN
offers a significant advantage in efficiency, size, and system costs. “A high-growth area is in
motor drives for robotics, drones, e-scooters, and e-bikes where GaN offers a smaller/lighter,
low-cost solution with reduced audible noise, increased efficiency, and higher precision movement.
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