TechDay: GaN Con – Power GaN: from promises to possible market explosion

Wide-band gap (WBG) technologies are now commonly accepted as a pertinent alternative to Silicon. Most power module and power inverter manufacturers have already included Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) in their roadmap as an option or as a firm project. However time-to-market differs from application to application as a function of value proposals for cost, specifications, availability, etc.. Indeed, the GaN Power market is driven by low voltage high frequency applications such as Lidar or wireless charging, where GaN has its distinguished selling point. However, it is strong entering in the consumer power supply market, with both power ICs and discrete devices, for solutions where the weight and size are extremely important or where efficiency is the main driver. Several GaN-on-Silicon power devices suppliers claim to have entered or to soon enter to the mass production phase which will also reshape the power electronics market and ecosystem.

In the past nine years, GaN-on-Si transistors and integrated circuits have enabled many extraordinary new applications such as LiDAR for autonomous cars, wireless power, and envelope tracking. GaN integrated circuits have started to appear in USB-C adapters, UPS systems, drones, and a host of medical devices. But the promise that GaN will crush silicon has not yet been fulfilled, until now. With pricing of 100 V GaN transistors equally commercial power MOSFETs, coupled with their large performance advantages, there has been a groundswell of GaN adoption occurring at 48 V input DC-DC power supplies used in everything from AI machines, high-end servers, gaming machines, and now cars. At Gan-Con, we will look at the front line of this adoption wave by showing examples of systems and quantifying the performance and cost edge GaN devices bring to the customer.

Gallium Nitride is well recognized as a potential replacement for silicon in a broad range of power electronics applications. Power is needed everywhere and the potential for GaN to save energy, reduce size and weight and enable fast charging seems obvious, so what is holding back the broad adoption of GaN-based power electronics? We will explore the potential for GaN , but also the adoption challenges, in a world that is demanding mobility, renewable energy, electric everything and instant data access. Let’s make them all happen … GanFast!!

The very fabric of economic life today is inextricably linked to data. Billions of smart consumer devices, content streaming, robotic factories, industrial IoT, and the pending rise of AI, AR, 5G, and blockchain have created a nearly unquenchable thirst for growth in digital infrastructure and data centers. Alongside our increasingly data driven world is the simultaneous mobility revolution. The social, regulatory and economic drivers pushing for electric vehicle (EV) market growth continues to intensify with a clear focus on the search for maximizing range, faster charging, and lower cost electrification systems. The evolution to autonomous vehicles (AV) will be enabled by the technologies of sensors, data creation and processing, machine intelligence, charging systems, connectivity – and – the enormous data centers needed to support them. The impact of autonomous vehicles on data centers is massive. Additionally, the electronics required for these AVs requires even more power, further increasing the need for higher operating efficiency and lightweight systems.
Increasing power efficiency and density have become a priority for data center operators and vehicle manufacturers from both business and social responsibility perspectives. Gallium Nitride (GaN) power transistors play a central role in the transition to greater energy efficiency by enabling the creation of smaller, lighter, lower cost, and more efficient power systems that are free from the limitations imposed by yesterday’s silicon-based solutions. GaN technology enables data center operators and vehicle manufacturers to not only drastically improve their own bottom line, but actually play a role in transforming an energy and data-dependent world.

GaN on silicon , power conversion devices have been on the market since 2010.  Yet only now are they being adopted in applications starting in large numbers. What have been the barriers to their adoption? Is reliability still an issue? Where are they being used today and what are the applications in which they will be used in the future? This  talk will provide the answers.

The automotive industry has been undergoing a massive transformation. This industry is today showing impressive technologies that answer market needs in term of comfort, safety and power management. Electrification, robotics, smart lighting… new competencies are entering the automotive world. This talk will address two emerging markets in automotive industry: electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EV/HEV) and Lidar.
EV/HEVs represent a healthy and growing market, driven by sustainable trends. The demand for electrified vehicles continues to grow and will overpass 18 million units per year by 2023. New players from different technology areas (material and equipment suppliers, power electronic device manufacturer, system integrators, car makers…) are beating for EV/HEV, investing in different technologies and bringing new market opportunities for emerging wide band gap materials, including GaN.
On the other hand, initially LiDAR has been confined to scientific and space applications but it is now expanding into mass market with the LiDAR market for automotive, both in the robo-taxi segment and the ADAS vehicle segment, which requires new technologies and new industries. LiDAR systems can also benefit from GaN’s higher performance.

In 2000 the first widely available camera phones became available. Four years later over half of cell phones had integrated cameras and today these low cost, compact, ubiquitous 2D cameras have changed our interaction with the world. This revolution was not started by an enabling innovation in camera technology, it was enabled by a serendipitous confluence of multiple technologies including memory, low cost data networks, and low cost displays combined with a strong market pull. In 2019 we are in the start of a 3D Revolution. Compact LIDAR systems and Time of Flight Cameras are now integrated into the newest cell phones, AR/VR systems, industrial robots, and self-driving cars. These new markets are being enabled by a suite of technologies, including GaN transistors and laser emitters. This powerful combination of compact light sources and compact drivers has enabled the development of efficient, compact, low cost, high speed active illuminators that would not have been possible a few years ago, yet are critical enablers of the emerging markets that rely on 3D imaging systems. In this presentation I will give an user based perspective on why we, as electrical and system designers, are excited by the unique qualities of GaN transistors and when we choose to design it into our products. I will use our work in the development of 3D imaging systems as a case study and discuss why we could not have made products the same way using traditional silicon transistors.