Industry megatrends are driving the need for more energy-efficient power conversion. As the market demands higher efficiency, density, and reliability in power delivery, semiconductor innovation is being pushed to new frontiers in artificial intelligence. This is changing the very landscape for datacenters, as well as industrial and renewable energy/storage systems hungry for efficiency. Additionally, onboard charging and DC/DC conversion in EVs and HEVs require innovative advances in power conversion to enable faster charging, higher range, and lightweight, cost-effective systems. In all of these applications, speed, efficiency, form factor (power density), and cost are key pain points.
Sources: Statista "Worldwide Data Created," respective company press releases, European Commission published sustainability policy documents, and the Paris Agreement
Silicon has reached its physical limits in power conversion. Among today's semiconductors capable of providing viable new architectures for these applications, it is Gallium Nitride (GaN) that offers the highest figure of merit and lowest-loss switching while enabling higher speed and higher frequency operation. By virtue of its intrinsic physics-based properties, GaN does the job much better than traditional Silicon and also better than silicon carbide (SiC). To date, much of the GaN adoption has been in lower-power consumer fast chargers where requirements for reliability and robustness are more forgiving. That is rapidly changing, however, as the power densities and efficiencies that lead to lower system costs from GaN become a necessity for these key growth markets of infrastructure, industrial, energy, and e-mobility.
Reliability and Design Advantages
As is often the case with new technologies, one size rarely fits all. However, for this key growth area of high-power, high-voltage (650V+) applications, we see depletion-mode (d-mode) GaN as a superior solution than enhancement-mode (e-mode) for several reasons:
- Fully isolated gate for greater robustness
- Standard gate drive avoids complicated drive circuits, negative drive, or custom drivers
- Enhanced noise immunity with higher threshold voltage, no negative gate drive required
- Lower temperature dependence for saturation current
- Better dynamic/static R(on) ratio and reduced third quadrant losses
- Widest range of package options with TO-, SMT, and top-side cooled packages
Read the "The Fundamental Advantages of Normally-Off D-Mode GaN" white paper to learn more about the benefits of d-mode versus e-mode GaN.
Renesas has had a series of firsts in high-voltage, high-power GaN reliability and qualification, and continues building on this solid SuperGaN® platform, testing beyond usual standards. We also recently published a conference paper on the correct way to run reliability testing to determine acceleration factors for intrinsic reliability modes, using acceleration methods that are consistent with the failure modes that would be expected in given applications.
To start, we test our device to Jedec 47 qualification requirements, HTRB, HTGB, HTOL (Hard Switching Boost), all for 1000 hours with three lots of 77 parts each to ensure no fuse and parametric failure or significant shift. Several tests go beyond AEC-Q101, including HTOL 175°C (vs. 150°C) for 3000 hours and HTGB at -35V (vs. 20V). HTRB and especially dynamic resistance variation is a key parameter to be controlled. As mentioned, e-mode does show significant shifts of dynamic RDS(on) up to 300% and up to 30% in static after high voltage HTRB. Finally, topics like Short Circuit Withstand Time (SCWT) need to be managed by properly driving OCP protection or with intrinsic approaches on the die modulating the 2D electron gas. Renesas has IP in these areas, as well as demonstrating up to 5 microseconds of SCWT (reference APEC 2024 paper).
In addition, Renesas GaN has demonstrated up to 99% efficiency in our PFC and DC/DC conversion evaluation board and reference design.
As GaN adoption continues, manufacturing for larger diameter wafers becomes necessary. We are also working on scaling GaN to 8-inch wafers, extending the reliability proven in our high-voltage GaN platform to larger diameters. To that end, we recently announced a partnership with Polar Semiconductor in the US, which will also establish a second wafer-fab manufacturing source, in addition to our existing high-quality Japan-based 6-inch wafer-fab. We already have three sources of epi-wafer manufacturing in the US, Japan, and Taiwan, including both 6-inch and 8-inch epi reactors.
Renesas GaN is available in one of the widest packaging portfolios in the industry, ranging from compact PQFNs to surface mount, higher power packages with top and bottom-side cooling (TOLT and TOLL), as well as the power industry workhorses like the TO-220 and TO-247 for superior thermal management. Leaded discrete GaN packages are generally not possible with competing e-mode GaN offerings.
Strong Platform with Ecosystem Support
To realize the full value of GaN, the larger ecosystem needs to be leveraged. One of our key capabilities is the Renesas Power ecosystem – a broad portfolio with extensive expertise and IP in controllers, drivers, and systems. These capabilities enable a host of new GaN products for us. In addition, this core know-how allows us to develop targeted controllers for key topologies in GaN, ranging from Totem-Pole PFCs to LLCs to QRF/Zero Voltage/Zero Standby power solutions and drivers, including high and low voltage, isolated and non-isolated, that enable GaN power stages. Coupled with system solutions, GaN's impact will be further magnified across markets from data centers and AI processing to industrial automation, motor drive, robotics, and e-mobility.
Taking all these points into account and with the experience of previous generations with more than 300 billion hours in the field, we recently introduced our Gen IV Plus GaN platform with a 15% improved RDS(on) and Rsp and an associated switching Figure of Merit (FOM) improvement of up to 50%. These new devices address multi-kilowatt class applications like AI servers, energy storage, and xEVs, and enable designers to create systems with higher power density, reduced footprint, and better efficiency at lower overall system costs.
Get all the details of the first devices in this new portfolio at renesas.com/gan-fets.
Read more about increasing the value of GaN to high-performance systems in the "How Your High-Performance System Can Benefit from GaN and Low-Voltage MOSFETs" blog.
新闻及更多资源
| 文档标题 | 类型 | 日期 |
|---|---|---|
| 瑞萨电子推出全新GaN FET，增强高密度功率转换能力，适用于AI数据中心、工业及电源系统应用 | 新闻 | 2025年7月1日 |
