Product and industry developments continue all year round for GaN

Not only does GaN see more products extolling the beneficial performance of GaN transistors, it also continues to see examples of how customers leverage GaN transistors to push circuitry to higher and higher power levels taking advantage of how GaN increases system power densities, reduces system size and weight, and increases power efficiency. The growth of GaN-enhanced applications is now extending to all market segments.

Recently a big and landmark industry development has occurred. The investment arm of BMW, known as BMW i Ventures, has just made a strategic investment in GaN Systems for reasons that go beyond GaN’s value proposition to the transportation industry.

In addition to impacting the electrification of automobiles, GaN also assists the EV and HEV electronic ecosystems, such as wired and wireless charging. To their credit, BMW i Ventures not only recognises the positive impact that GaN is making on transportation electronics, EVs and HEVs, but they also understand how GaN’s benefits apply to the broader consumer and industrial markets.

For example, as automobile manufacturers build data centres to harvest and process the vast amount of data that autos produce, GaN plays a central role in increasing server power supply efficiency while reducing their size and operating cost. BMW i Ventures views GaN as an instrumental component that will save customers billions of dollars, help to reduce emissions, and enable a more sustainable infrastructure by reducing power consumption.

In the future
In October, at the upcoming IEEE Energy Conversion Congress & Expo (ECCE), GaN Systems’ Lucas Lu will present a technical paper, A High Power-density and High Efficiency Insulated Metal Substrate Based E-GaN HEMT Power Stage. Lu will explain how GaNPX bottom-side parts are suitable for mounting onto IMS in any configuration the user needs, such as half-bridges and full bridges, allowing total flexibility in size, shape and power, while facilitating operation at higher power levels than PCBs and providing faster time to market than possible with custom modules.

He will also show how GaNPX packaging exhibits better thermal performance than an equivalent TO-247 package. With this approach, engineers can develop systems using IMS and then either stay with IMS modules, or convert to full power modules in production.

ECCE visitors to GaN Systems’ Booth 200 will see examples of how our customers are using GaN transistors in applications such as wireless power transfer, start-stop motors, power modules and many others.