1. Welcome to Bodo’s Power Conference 2020. I’m Stephen Oliver from Navitas Semiconductor, the world’s first and only gallium nitride (GaN) power IC company. I’m very happy to be with you virtually for this exciting conference on wide bandgap technologies. Today, we’ll learn how GaNFast power ICs provide reliable, high-performance, fast charging.
2. Navitas means ‘energy’, and we bring a new energy to power electronics: the energy to create, the energy to change, the energy to innovate in a sustainable way.
3. Gallium nitride – or GaN – is a new semiconductor material that operates up to 100x faster than old, slow silicon chips. Early GaN was ‘depletion-mode’ which meant it was normally ‘on’ – a short circuit. This needed complex systems to control power converters. Modern GaN is enhancement-mode – i.e. normally ‘off’. The key to customer success is Navitas’ careful integration of GaN power, drive control and protection for high-speed, i.e. high switching frequency performance.
4. As you can see, take the best GaN switch, add the best GaN driver, plus control and protection and you get the world’s first GaNFast power ICs. Navitas uses a proprietary process design kit – or PDK – to create robust, high-frequency ICs. Over 120 patents cover device structures, packaging, applications and systems. High speed drives high density and in turn, drives lower system costs – as we’ll come to later in more detail.
5. Optimized integration means that GaNFast power ICs are easy-to-use, high-performance ‘digital-in, power-out’ building blocks. Starting with the ‘single’ GaNFast power IC, simply use your favourite PWM controller and get high-frequency, high-density power. As we increase integration – here is a half-bridge with 2 GaN FETs, 2 GaN drivers plus level-shifting, ESD and shoot-through protection, etc. – you can see a very clean, fast waveform, switching from 0 to 600V at 2MHz. It is so clean that it looks like a simulation – which makes a power designer very happy!
6. Gallium nitride is a high-speed material – but it also requires careful control of the gate. In discrete-drive example – where the GaN FET is a vulnerable 3-terminal switch – complex drive schemes are required for control. Here, we’re looking at just one of the downsides to the discrete approach – gate-source loop inductance. With discretes you need a damping resistor to protect the GaN FET gate – but this side effects include power loss and erratic behaviour. With monolithic integration of GaN driver and GaN FET – we experience fast, safe, loss-less switching.
7. Integration of FET and driver deliver stability, efficiency and speed. Integration also enables features that deliver simplicity and high reliability. The gate is fully protected. The PWM input is standard 5V, 12V logic which means simple layout. Hysteretic input handles voltage noise spikes. So let’s see the proof, and first look at power component reliability.
8. Quality is both a core strength and value, with Navitas pioneering understanding in GaN device and high-frequency, system-level reliability. Here, we see the focus on lifelike operation conditions to push GaN at realistic speed, temperature and voltage, with solid results proving long lifetime. Navitas has shared this innovative approach with the wide bandgap industry as a founding member of the Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council committee on GaN.
9. Any reliability tests must be supported by ongoing monitoring programs. Navitas is proud to work with world-class manufacturing partners TSMC and Amkor for high-volume production and excellent reliability. Since we qualified our gallium nitride power ICs in Q1 2018, production has ramped quickly, with 5 million pieces shipped by July 2020.
10. The production ramp has continued strongly, and we can now update that over 9 million GaNFast power ICs have been shipped. Reliability testing is at over 3.4 billion equivalent device hours, with over 17 billion field hours, the FIT rate is less than 0.27 and there have been zero field failures.
11. Let’s turn to the market, and begin with mobile fast chargers. As you can see on the left – with data from Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO and all the top phone companies – screen size has increased 3x in the last 10 years and batteries have grown aggressively too, with the RealMe C15 model shipping with a 6,000 mAhr battery. If we were to stay with the same 5W ‘sugar cube’ charger from 2010, we would be waiting over 8 hours for our new 2020 phone to charge. As a result, we need more power. On the right, we see the latest flagship releases from our phone company friends now reaching 50-65-90-100+ watts. As consumers also want a small size – you can see how GaN dominates the fast charger market, delivering small size and fast charging at retail prices 50% lower than previous best-in-class silicon chargers.
12. Let’s look at some of the commercial releases that have driven GaN’s adoption in the fast charger market. In Q1 this year, Xiaomi – the world’s #3 smartphone company announced its Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro with a new 65W single-output GaNFast charger – a great moment to show how GaN was trusted by a major, innovative company. This design used GaNFast power ICs in an active-clamp flyback at 500kHz – about 10x faster than traditional silicon chargers – which enabled the use of low-profile, easy-to-use planar magnetics.
13. We’ll take this moment and return to my comment about pricing. Here, we can see the price and performance of GaN-based chargers vs. old, slow silicon-based designs. A simple snapshot shows how the Xiaomi 65W is only one of many GaNFast chargers that offer real savings over previous benchmark silicon chargers, averaging half the size, weight and cost.
14. Continuing the single-output trend, OPPO is another leading smartphone company, in the same group as OnePlus and RealMe brands. In July it announced the 50W Mini ‘Cookie’ charger which is on sale next week, from December 12th. High-speed GaN performance is used in a new ‘pulsed’ topology to minimize the transformer and eliminate the bulky electrolytic hold-up capacitors. This is a beautiful design from the innovative fast-charging leader and is the same size as the popular Wang Wang cookie.
15. In last year’s conference, the Baseus 65W 2C1A was a breakthrough, with GaNFast power ICs enabling a 3x reduction in size, weight and cost. Today, we see big-name OEM companies like Lenovo with their own multi-output chargers and a broad range of aftermarket companies adopting GaN. The Chargasap has now pushed GaNFast charging to 200W – enough power for two laptops and two phones to fast-charge simultaneously.
16. Moving on to higher powers, 300W AC-DC and DC-DC systems are in mass production with GaNFast power ICs. As we move into 2021, prototype multi-kW systems in the eMobility and data center markets will be promoted to production designs. In all cases, high speed, high performance and high reliability are demanded, and those demands are more than satisfied by GaNFast power ICs.
17. Thank you for watching this update on Navitas GaNFast power ICs. I look forward to hearing your reactions, comments and questions. Thank you also to Bodo and the Aspencore team for the opportunity to speak with you today. Let’s Go GaNFast!
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