BMW i Ventures to invest in GaN Systems

GaN Systems, a leading GaN for power electronics devices start-up has announced they closed an investment round. The round was led by BMW i Ventures, the investment branch of BMW group. BMW i Ventures is also a Chargepoint investor. It’s not the first investment in a Power Electronics company, but it seems to be the first investment in a semiconductor company for BMW.

BMW i Ventures joins a long list of investors already part of the GaN Systems adventure: BDC Capital, Chrysalix Venture Capital, Cycle Capital Management, RockPort Capital and Tsing Capital.

BMW i Ventures manager acknowledged the advantages of GaN technology for electric cars. Efficiency and size reduction seems to be the main drivers for using GaN power electronics in electric cars.

Source: GaN Systems press release

 

 

 

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Advanced Energy acquires Excelsys

Advanced Energy, a USA based converter manufacturer acquired Excelsys, the specialty power conversion company for 15.5 Million Euros all in cash. Excelsys 2016 revenues are estimated at 10.6 Million Euros.

Advanced Energy changed its strategy during the last years. They acquired REFUsol back in 2013 to strengthen their position in the solar inverter world. It happened when the PV business became more and more competitive, with prices and margin dropping. This move’s objective was to reposition Advanced Energy in a more profitable position through REFUsol three-phase PV inverter product line.

Advanced Energy decided to slow down its PV inverter activity in 2015, realizing that it would be less risky and more profitable for shareholders. They decided to focus more on their core business, precision and speciality power converters. This new acquisition confirms Advanced Energy’s strategy.

Today, Excelsys is part of Advanced Energy, adding many new product lines and applications to the company, in medical, high reliability and industrial power supplies.

The official press release is available here.

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SBE and Nichicon to develop a new DC Link capacitor bank

SBE and Nichicon have partnered and started developing a new technology of capacitor banks for DC links. It’s called Bank Hardener, and combines SBE’s Power Ring patented technology and Nichicon’s Aluminum Electrolytic capacitors.

SBE is well known as an innovator. They partnered with Methode Electronics, Agile Switch, Fuji Electronic America and National instruments to present the SmartPower Stack back in 2013, and still available. They fully understood the trends of the Power Electronics and embrace them to innovate.

The Power Ring technology used here consists in building a flat and round capacitor with a large diameter. Advantages resides in low internal losses and inductive properties.

SBE and Nichicon plan to release their Hybrid DC Link System. It will, according to SBE, help in improving power density, especially when using Gallium Nitride (GaN) et Silicon Carbide (SiC).

Source

 

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Infineon expands its 1200V IGBT line

Infineon Technologies AG expands its 1200 V discrete IGBT product line. The devices, rated now at up to 75 A, are co-packed with a diode in TO-247PLUS packages.

Typical targeted applications are motor drives, photovoltaic inverters or UPS (uninterruptible power supplies). A few emerging applications also required this kind of device: battery charging and other energy storage systems.

The new TO247PLUS package delivers, according to Infineon, double current rating, and a larger lead frame area (thus bigger IGBT dies and lower thermal resistance) compared to T0-247-3 packages. A 4-pin version is also available, providing Kelvin emitter source pin for lower inductance gate-emitter control loop and reduced switching losses.

The 1200V devices are available in T0-247PLUS 3 pins and 4 pins packages, at 40 A, 50 A and 75 A, including the full current free-wheeling diode, in high volume.

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EPC introduces 200V GaN Power transistor

EPC announced the EPC2046. It’s a 200V device dedicated to wireless power, AC-DC power supplies, PV micro inverters or low inductance motor drives.

The 200V transistor is based on EPC’s latest GaN transistor design. It’s using their fifth-generation production process. It features 25mΩ Rds(ON) with a 55A max pulsed output current. It’s using the usual CSP package (Chip Scale Packaging) from EPC (which is basically a synonym of ‘no-package’…). The ‘package’ allows a very small size compared to similar Silicon MOSFETS. EPC’s 2046 is 0.95mm x 2.76mm.

EPC2046 eGaN FET is distributed at $3.51 for 1.000 units.

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Littelfuse launched new 1.2kV SiC Diodes

Littelfuse announced new 1200V Silicon Carbide diodes during PCIM 2017 last week, called GEN2. Littelfuse, which first focus was protection systems, is now fully entered in the power semiconductor world. This news adds to the recent additional investment in Monolith Semiconductor, a Silicon Carbide power devices start-up.

The diodes are the first to be produced using the Monolith Semiconductor partnership. According to Littelfuse, they offer enhanced surge capabilities, with a low leakage. These characteristics add to the usual performances of SiC diodes: higher junction temperature, higher efficiency and power density for boost converters.

Typical applications for these devices are power supplies with a PFC and freewheeling diodes in inverters. The main markets as of now are PV inverters, DC/DC converters, switch mode power supplies, some high-end UPS systems and motor drives.

GEN2 SiC diodes are available at 1200V and at 5 to 10A, in discrete packages.

SiC MOSFETs at 1200V should follow quickly, according to Littelfuse timeline.

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Infineon announces SiC power module volume production

Infineon, announced today they start mass production of the successful EASY 1B power module using their SiC MOSFET CoolSiC.

The EASY platform is widely used in the motor drive and industrial area, including hybrid and electric vehicles, HVAC, Pumps, DC/DC converters and on-board chargers. EASY platform has always been using latest Infineon IGBT technology. It’s now the first platform to propose a Silicon Carbide MOSFET option in mass production.

Infineon announced their SiC MOSFET technology last year at PCIM, after a long wait. They claimed to wait to have a reliable and easy to use technology. The CoolSiC is designed to be chip-to-chip replacable with an IGBT. They share the same driving voltages and characteristics. It’s probably not a good way to get the best performances but it surely facilitates the move to SiC technology by easing the work of designers.

As the biggest power semiconductor manufacturer, Infineon sets a new standard in pushing for SiC, at last.

The SiC version of EASY 1B will start with the B6 at 1200V: a six-pack full-bridge three phase design. EASY 2B with half-bridge and TO247 discrete components will also be available. This last part seems anecdotal, but let’s keep in mind that both Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X use Infineon’s TO247 IGBTs in the motor drive. The switch to Silicon Carbide in electric cars may be closer than we think.

 

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ExaGaN able to start mass production of GaN devices

ExaGaN, the French GaN for power electronics start-up, had started a partnership with X-Fab in 2015 to develop a mass manufacturing process of GaN transistors on 200mm wafers. It’s now done. They announced today they have solved issues related to defectivity, material stress and process integration. They are able to manufacture their G-FET devices in X-Fab fab dedicated to GaN process.

Being able to apply a process to 8 inches wafers is a good sign to the GaN industry for cost optimization. ExaGaN is still the wafer maker: Substrates are made in Grenoble (France), hometown of the French start-up, and using the proprietary process. Substrate making is key in GaN devices manufacturing, as it is highly challenging to growth GaN on top of another material (Silicon in this case). Still, it is necessary to stay in a reasonable cost ranges.

ExaGaN says it confirms the strength of their fablite business model, keeping control of manufacturing from material to device.

Source: ExaGaN Press release.

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Is Avogy Inc. dead ?

GoZolt.com is down, and Avogy’s website redirects to a company named Nexgen Power Systems

NexGen

NexGen Power Systems logo (probably the new name of Avogy Inc. No press release confirmed the information).

At PntPower we love to try, test, sneak and search. We acquired Avogy’s laptop charger, named Zolt just to try and test. We also published about what we might find in there, and then re-published about what kind of power devices were really in there.

Recently, we went back to the website gozolt.com. It was down. It seems, according to social media, that the website has been down for a while. For all those (like us) who expected an update (like an EU plug version) or an additional plug to match latest laptops… I think you can try FinSix or Innergie’s latest chargers, or even expect Cambridge Electronics or Appulse Power to release a product soon.

This down website led us to search more about Avogy Inc. The company is now renamed to NexGen Power Systems. A new name, an old website shut down, and probably a product line let down… what is happening at ex-Avogy ?

Let’s refresh our memories about what Avogy was and was supposed to become :

Avogy Inc. was born ePowersoft Inc. in September 2010. It was backed in 2011 by Khosla Ventures, a fund that also invested in Scribd or Instacart. In the semiconductor field they backed Soraa, a GaN/GaN LED manufacturer founder by the inventor of LED, Shinji Nakamura. Khosla Ventures invested a total of 32M$ to date.

Intel Capital (the investment fund of Intel) also supported Avogy Inc.

Avogy developed a GaN/GaN power semiconductor device. They own several patents in the field. After different developments and proof of concepts, they released and started to produce the 1st GaN/GaN vertical transistor. They used Soraa’s production line and Kyma technologies’ substrates.

But according to all the people we discussed with, the distribution of these devices has never been large. As DoE and DoD also were investors in the company, they might have kept the first products, together with a very limited number of beta-test customers.

Avogy Inc. timeline important dates

Extract from Avogy Inc. presentation. All rights reserved Avogy Inc.

Avogy Inc. managed to advertise the company as the future GaN leader, by mastering GaN/GaN technology and outclassing any other GaN/Si or GaN/SiC based technology.

In 2015, Avogy Inc. through Zolt, a subsidiary created for the occasion, released a small laptop charger. They left doubt and confusion whether or not their device used GaN devices. Finally, a reverse engineering process revealed that Cree MOSFETs were used… Which is ironic for a GaN device maker.

By the end of 2016, Zolt’s website stopped working and there is no news or ways to contact the company. It seems that they produced a batch of chargers, and then closed the website.

Extract from Avogy Inc. Presentation. All rights reserved to Avogy Inc.

Avogy Inc. now leads you to the same website, with a logo and address changed to Nexgen Power Systems. No PR, no communication, no information released anywhere.

You can find traces of an auction from January 2017 where Avogy is selling a lot of equipment… Is Avogy preparing a rebirth from its own ashes ?

These signs are not very positive. But let’s wait for further information.

Maybe Nexgen (ex-Avogy) is preparing something big, with next investments ! We will investigate further during PCIM in Nuremberg.

 

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Transphorm offer bilateral and higher voltage GaN

Bilateral and higher voltage GaN… but not at the same time:

Transphorm is a California Wide Band Gap semiconductor start-up, part of the leading suppliers of power GaN devices today. They are part of the PowerAmerica consortium too. With the help of the latter, they developed and already ship limited samples of a bilateral GaN based device. They also developed a 900V version of their GaN devices.

Bilateral devices have been an interesting solution for innovative converter topologies for a long time. Fuji electric released a new type of IGBT power modules made for three-level conversion using a solution close to bilateral devices. The topology is called AT-NPC and uses RB-IGBT (Reverse Blocking IGBT). It’s also a very good solution for matrix converter (AC-AC converters mainly used for motor drives), which are double-side converters. Bilateral devices help reduce the device count by a factor of 2 to 4 for these innovative topologies.

Getting to higher voltage is also a key target for Gallium Nitride. The release of a 900V GaN device is good news for the market.

All these developments have been partially founded and had a technical help from PowerAmerica, which accelerated the development process – acknowledged Primit Parikh, COO of Transphorm.

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Renesas released a 100kW dev. kit for EV

Renesas Electronics Corporation announced its new 100kW class inverter solution. It’s designed to drive 100kW motors for Hybrid and electric vehicles (EV and HEV) in a 3.9 liter volume.

It’s delivered as a kit which includes:

  • Power Semiconductors: IGBTs, Diodes and other components
  • Microcontrollers
  • Control Software

All manufactured and supplied by Renesas. The objective is to shorten the development time for engineering and design teams. Renesas claims it could help reduce prototyping time of up to 50%.  A 50kW solution already existed since 2014. It’s now completed with this new 100kW high power kit.

Source

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GE to supply SiC dies for Danfoss power modules

Danfoss Silicon Power and General Electric announced they entered in an agreement this week. Danfoss is establishing a new production site for power modules. This was the opportunity for them to start the production of full SiC based power modules.

The collaboration between Danfoss Silicon Power and General Electric comes as part of the New York Power Electronics Manufacturing Consortium (NY-PEMC). The NY-PEMC is a private-public collaboration with an investment of USD 20 billions established in 2014. By early 2018, Danfoss will have a running production site for Silicon Carbide power modules in Utica, NY. GE will provide SiC MOSFET and Diodes from its own technology and production sites.

New York State will own the buildings and finance start up costs, as an effort to promote innovation. Danfoss Silicon Power will rent them to   the state of New York.

Video of Claus Petersen talking about this partnership

“Danfoss Silicon Power is gaining a unique position as the only independent SiC module manufacturer in the US and GE has been a customer from day one. Similarly, it has opened the door to the US market, where demand for the power modules manufactured by Danfoss Silicon Power is expected to grow explosively,”

says Claus A. Petersen, General Manager and Vice President of Danfoss Silicon Power.

Source

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