News: Microelectronics
26 January 2021
Navitas ships 13 millionth GaNFast Power ICs with zero failures
Navitas Semiconductor Inc of El Segundo, CA, USA says that over 13 million of its gallium nitride (GaN) power ICs have been shipped to date with zero failures, demonstrating GaN’s rapid adoption in the fast-charging mobile consumer market and beyond.
GaN ICs are reckoned to run up to 100x faster than silicon chips, with 40% energy savings and up to 3x power density improvements. Navitas claims that its GaNFast power ICs (which integrate power, analog and digital circuits) are the highest-performance, most integrated and lowest-system-cost power GaN devices on the market. They are shipping in mass production to many tier-1 customers including Lenovo, Dell, Xiaomi and OPPO.
Two Navitas customers were announced as Consumer Electronics Show (CES2021) Innovation Awards Honorees. Chargeasap received its award for the high-power 200W Omega 2C+2A charger, and ADG was rewarded for its 100W ‘9-in-1’ power and communications hub. Both designs use GaNFast power ICs to deliver high performance in extremely compact form-factors.
Founded in 2014, Navitas has 120+ patents issued or pending on all aspects of GaN device, packaging, applications and systems. The firm’s proprietary GaN process design kit (PDK) was developed based on the GaN-on-Si platform of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC, the world's biggest silicon wafer foundry).
“At CES 2021, we were pleased to deliver on our predictions and not only announce that over 100 fast mobile chargers use GaNFast technology but also to thank our trusted foundry partner TSMC that helps us manufacture the products with its leading GaN process technology,” says Navitas’ CEO & co-founder Gene Sheridan. “We are experiencing unprecedented demand and truly appreciate TSMC’s support in bringing GaNFast power ICs to the market quickly. Navitas works to ‘electrify the planet’ and accelerate applications like EV/eMobility, solar inverters, efficient data centers and LED lighting… all of which serve to reduce our planet’s dependency on harmful, fossil-fuel energy sources,” he adds.
“TSMC will continue to support our customers with leading GaN manufacturing expertise to deliver great energy efficiency improvement for power conversion applications that are more eco-friendly,” says Sajiv Dalal, senior VP business management, TSMC North America.
“TSMC is an industry-leading company and we are delighted with our continued partnership in accelerating the development and delivery of GaN power ICs,” comments Dan Kinzer, Navitas’ chief operating officer/chief technology officer & co-founder. “The delivery and quality results speak for themselves with a run-rate of over 1 million GaNFast power ICs shipping every month, over 13 million shipped in total and zero field failures,” he adds. “Navitas is investing aggressively to accelerate development of a new generation of GaN power ICs with even higher levels of integration, speed, energy savings and lower system costs.”
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