GaN’s role for the new power electronics world

Why Wide BandGap (WBG), and why GaN specifically? AspenCore Media’s new book, the “AspenCore Guide to Gallium Nitride: A New Era for Power Electronics,” answers those questions and more.

WBG power semiconductor devices in silicon carbide and GaN technology provide design advantages that are allowing previously unimaginable application performance: low leakage current, significantly reduced power losses, higher power density, higher-frequency operation, and the ability to tolerate higher operating temperatures, all with a smaller device size than could be achieved for a silicon-only equivalent. Other features, of no lesser importance, are robustness and increased reliability, resulting in improved overall device life expectancy and increased operational stability.

Energy efficiency is now a strategic initiative in increasingly power-reliant industries such as data centers, electric vehicles, and the green grid. GaN-based devices hold the key to addressing a primary hurdle for the expansion of renewable energy.

From a power management standpoint,  all power systems require a high level of integration to achieve the required portability. High energy efficiency is required for truly portable and therefore battery-operated systems. Lower power consumption maximizes device operating time without recharging or replacing the batteries.

GaN must operate safely and efficiently in a high-frequency ecosystem to fulfill its role in advancing the necessary revolution in fast charging, power conversion and energy storage. Integrating GaN FET, GaN analog, and GaN logic will yield a true GaN power IC…

Foreword: Alex Lidow, CEO of Efficient Power Conversion (EPC)

Market overview: Yole Développement

Technology analysis: Elena Barbarini, System Plus Consulting; Filippo Di Giovanni, STMicroelectronics; Alex Lidow, EPC; Chris Lee, Power Integrations; Dilder Chowdhury, Nexperia; Stephen Oliver and Dan Kinzer, Navitas Semiconductor; Stefano Lovati and Davide Di Gesualdo, EEWeb; Paul Wiener, GaN Systems; and Professor Alex Q. Huang, Tianxiang Chen, and Ruiyang Yu, University of Texas at Austin. In addition, there are reports from Jens Tybo Jensen, Jun Honda, and Pawan Garg, Infineon Technologies; Max Zafrani, EPC Space; Kasyap Patel, Wolfspeed, a Cree Company; Andrea Vinci, Tektronix; and Gerald Deboy, Infineon Technologies.

Tech papers: Keysight, ON Semiconductor, Cadence, United Monolithic Semiconductors, Transphorm, Nexperia, and CEA-Leti… Full announcement