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Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD) has signed a tripartite agreement with Chicony Power Technology of Taiwan and Cambridge University Technical Services (CUTS), UK, to develop advanced, high power-density adapters and data centre power products using GaN.
CGD designs, develops and commercialises GaN transistors and ICs enabling a radical step change in energy efficiency and compactness. A fabless, clean-tech semiconductor company, this fabless enterprise was spun out from University of Cambridge. In November 2016 CGD was the joint winner of our annual Postdoc Business Plan Competition, taking home a £20,000 investment. Less than five years later, they completed a $9.5 million Series A funding round.
Chicony Power is a well-established total solution provider of power electronics systems focusing on power supplies and adapters for various applications, including notebooks, desktop computers, gaming devices, and server/cloud solutions. With its leading strengths in energy management technologies, Chicony Power has been actively working on environmentally friendly products and solutions related to “Smart Living and Green Energy Saving”, which integrate elements of social and environmental responsibility into product design & planning.
Prof. Florin Udrea, the head of the High Voltage Microelectronics and Sensor (HVMS) group at The University of Cambridge will act as the lead consultant on behalf of CUTS, a subsidiary of Cambridge Enterprise. With a 25-year history in power device design, TCAD simulations and characterisation of power devices, The HVMS group, dedicated to power devices and sensors, consists of 10-20 members including PhD students, postdocs and fellows. It has released over 600 journal and international conference papers over past 10 years (IEEE, IEE, Phys. Rev, JAP, APL, ISPSD, IEDM) and has actively been involved in many collaborations with the power electronics industry.
The three parties will collaborate around a technical project entitled ‘Innovative low power and high power SMPS (switch mode power supplies) with advanced GaN solutions’. This collaboration represents the creation of a significant GaN eco-system consisting of expertise in systems and applications, research and devices.
The project is expected to deliver SMPS prototypes for highly efficient, high-density adapters for notebooks – where Chicony Power is the market leader – and Titanium+ efficiency / High Power Density (> 100W/inch3) CRPS and OCP power shelf (3kW ~ 6kW) power supply unit for data centres and AI server applications.
Recently, CGD launched the second series of its ICeGaN™ 650 V gallium nitride HEMT family. H2 Series ICeGaN HEMTs employ CGD’s smart gate interface that virtually eliminates typical e-mode GaN weaknesses, delivering significantly improved overvoltage robustness, higher noise-immune threshold, dV/dt suppression and ESD protection. Like previous-generation devices, the new 650 V H2 ICeGaN transistors are simple to drive using commercially available industry gate drivers. Finally, H2 ICeGaN HEMTs feature a QG that is 10x lower than silicon parts and a QOSS that is 5x less. This greatly reduces switching losses, with corresponding reductions in size and weight.
This article was first published as a press release by Cambridge GaN Devices.