May 2020

9 www.power-mag.com Issue 2 2020 Power Electronics Europe MARKET NEWS patent landscape, according to Knowmade. Infineon has the strongest IP portfolio to front the growing of GaN power market. Transphorm is a major force in the power GaN IP arena, well ahead of the other GaN pure-players, EPC, GaN Systems, Navitas, Exagan or VisIC. In April 2020 the company launched its Gen IV GaN Platform called SuperGaN. The first JEDEC-qualified SuperGaN device will be the TP65H300G4LSG, a 240 m Ω 650 V GaN FET in a PQFN88 package. The second SuperGaN device is the TP65H035G4WS, a 35 m Ω 650 V GaN FET in a TO-247 package. These devices are currently sampling and will be available Q2 and Q3 respectively. Target applications include adapters, servers, telecommunications, broad industrial, and renewables. System designers can assess the technology in Transphorm’s 4 kW bridgeless totem pole AC-DC evaluation board, the TDTTP4000W066C-KIT. “According to our analysis, Transphorm today has the dream patent portfolio for all those who want to benefit from strategic advantages in GaN power electronics market. Some signals lead us to believe the first 650 V GaN-on-Si FETs from Nexperia announced in November 2019 may use Transphorm’s patents,” comments Nicolas Baron, CEO of Knowmade. Nexperia’s GAN063-650WSA is a 650 V, 50 m Ω GaN FET based on a cascode configuration of a GaN-on-Silicon HEMT with a standard low voltage Silicon MOSFET. This drives high frequency and makes a normally-off transistor from the normally- on GaN HEMT. The Silicon MOSFET is stacked on top of the GaN HEMT to connect the source contact of the bottom die to the drain contact of the upper die. The device is assembled in a TO247 package for easy integration into power electronic systems. It integrates a DCB substrate and a Gate- Source-Drain (GSD) pin-out arrangement in order to reduce the parasitic inductance and capacitance in high frequency operation. “In the GaN-on-Sapphire patent landscape, Power Integrations is the best-known player. In 2019, their market entrance was particularly spectacular,”stated Yole analyst Ezgi Dogmus. “They announced in fall that it had not only shipped close to 3 million units of its new Innoswitch3 with a SiP GaN product, but also earned a design win with a major smartphone OEM.” In April 2020 the number has increased to 5 million. Numerous other players have also developed IP related to GaN-on-Sapphire for power applications, including CorEnergy, Powdec and Seoul Semiconductor. In a GaN power market bursting with potential, more players are expected to enter and benefit from high-volume opportunities. For example, LED manufacturers may want to leverage their GaN-on- Sapphire know-how and high production capacity to derive considerable benefit. A fierce competition is likely to break out between all of these actors and their different business models. However, everyone’s ultimate goal is to gain a foothold in the lively GaN power market, earn a design win, and ramp up! GaN killer application Out of all the GaN-based power supply applications, inbox fast-charging is likely to be the killer application for the GaN power device market. Over the last two years, system-on- chip (SoC) and system-in-package (SiP) primarily from Navitas, along with Power Integrations, have managed to enter at least 50 aftermarket fast- charger brands, including Ravpower, Anker, and Aukey. One of the 2019 most significant developments was Oppo’s adoption of GaN HEMTs for 65 W inbox fast charging. What other possible market scenarios exist for GaN adoption in this mass market? Yole anticipates proliferation of Chinese OEM challengers such as Oppo, Vivo, axnd Xiaomi in the emerging 5G luxury smartphone business, which demands significant technology differentiation. Oppo’s SuperVOOC 2.0 meets these demands, with its reduced charging time and charger size. The company claims that its new fast charger has the ability to fully charge a 4000 mAh battery in around 30 minutes. The charger features a GaN- based device from Power Integrations, one of the main power device providers for the wall-charger market. The move from Silicon technology to GaN technology for power as high as 65W results in lower cost per watt. Other Chinese OEMs have also announced very high-power fast charging (beyond 100 W), and could potentially adopt GaN devices in the coming years. In light of these prospective achievements, the overall GaN device market is nominally expected to surpass $350 million by 2024. In a more optimistic scenario (and in addition to Chinese OEMs deploying high-power fast chargers), GaN could also be adopted by other players - including leading OEMs like Apple, Huawei, and Samsung - after achieving high maturity and market acceptance as well as cost- competitiveness compared to Si MOSFETs. In the best-case, this could create truly remarkable market opportunities. GaN is also expected to penetrate industrial and telecom power supply applications including datacom, base stations, UPS, and industrial LiDAR applications. Following the first small-volume adoption of GaN-based power supplies by Eltek, Delta, and BelPower over the last few years, Yole analysts’ expect broader penetration of GaN in the near future, with increasing efficiency requirements in data centers benefiting from enhanced GaN device maturity and cost-competitiveness. In either of these scenarios, Yole analysts’ expect significant growth: a CAGR of at least 92 % from 2018 - 2024 for the GaN-based power supply market. www.yole.fr