Nexperia teams with Chinese en route to GaN power devices in EVs

Semiconductor manufacturer Nexperia has announced a comprehensive partnership with United Automotive Electronic Systems (UAES). This Chinese company specializes in the development, production and sales of gasoline engine management systems, transmission control systems, vehicle body electronics and hybrid and electric drive control systems. As part of the joint-development agreement, the duo will combine their expertise and focus on the development of gallium nitride (GaN) technology in power semiconductor devices for use in electric vehicles (EVs).

As the high-power requirements of EVs, 5G telecommunication and industrial IoT continues to increase, new requirements will be needed in power conversion efficiencies. To meet these needs, GaN is expected to become the mainstream enabling technology. UAES has already started using Nexperia GaN FETs in R&D and collaborative projects including vehicle-mounted chargers and high-voltage DC-DC converters for electric cars. The GaN technology from the Nijmegen-based company has extremely good figures of merit and reverse recovery charge metrics that support high switching frequencies and efficient power conversion. Nexperia produces GaN based on mature and reliable mass production techniques, largely in its own global facilities, to manufacture products according to automotive AEC Q101 standards.

“The power density and efficiency of silicon-based GaN field-effect transistors will play key roles in the electrification of cars. We recognize the broad offering, industry position and customer basis that UAES has in the automotive industry and we believe that our intensified collaboration in GaN will help both companies to deliver more advanced and efficient EV power system solutions to our customers,” says Paul Zhang, SVP of sales and marketing and GM of Nexperia, China. “Earlier, we announced an increase in global production and R&D investment to fully support new product development. We intend to expand our investments and jointly create a laboratory to develop automotive GaN technology applications.”