Just a few days ago, the investment potential in this area emerged and BMW jumped on board: GaN Systems signed a production agreement with BMW for GaN power transistors, worth $100 million in collaboration.
From this perspective, the application of GaN in automobiles may be as expected by Yole, and will be implemented in the next 2-3 years. Starting from 2021, with most car manufacturers preparing for the 800V system, the use of SiC will soon enter an explosive period, and the use of GaN on DCDC and OBC is estimated to be seen soon.
GaN System and BMW
In 2017, GaN Systems received strategic investment from BMW i Ventures, and with the landing hardware design of Delta, Rohm and On Semiconductor ecosystem, GaN Systems can walk more steadily.
From the perspective of competitive situation, a competitor EPC (Efficient Power Conversion) follows its own packaging route.
Note: There are several start-ups that need to be tracked one by one, including Transphorm, Cambridge Semicoductor, SEMICOA, Advanced Analogic Technologies and Solitron Devices.
Target Applications for GaN Devices
Currently, the application of GaN devices mainly includes power electronics in 48V systems, in-car chargers, and DCDC, which can be extended to inverters in the future. Wireless charging, mobile phone wireless charging and LiDAR could all use this technology.
For OBC, using GaN devices can reduce the size to one-fifth of the original size and increase the charging efficiency to 98%, which can also reduce the structure of heat dissipation.
In terms of DCDC, it can be changed from water-cooled design to air-cooled. While the power density increases from 1 kW/L to 2 kW/L, this efficiency plays a very direct role in the multi-in-one.
In this aspect, Denso has made many attempts to reduce the overall design volume by 80%, which basically subverts the original design method.
Upgrading from 400V to 800V, the compound growth of SiC has almost peaked, and the innovation based on the original 400V system may be left to GaN devices. Data from IHS shows that the compound growth rate of gallium nitride power devices market is expected to reach 30% from 2021 to 2027, with the output value expected to exceed 1 billion U.S. dollars in 2027, and there is great potential for future development.
In terms of power devices comparison, compared with Si IGBT, SiC can make the system upgrade to higher system voltage, higher operating temperature, and faster switching speed, thus bringing excellent performance in the use of inverters. GaN switches based on silicon and gallium nitride have been applied from a range of several hundred W to 25 kW, besides the OBC, DCDC, PTC and electric air conditioning control also have space to do.
Summary: The Green Chip Channel has done a study on the use of GaN devices. If GaN devices in automobiles enter an outbreak period, we will do more exploration, including the disassembly of forward-looking aspects, which is very meaningful for us to pay attention to future development.
Reference: excerpted from Sample GaN Power 2021: Epitaxy, Devices, Applications and Technology Trends Market and Technology Report 2021.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.