STMicroelectronics launches PowerGaN series of gallium nitride power semiconductors

STMicroelectronics launches PowerGaN series of gallium nitride power semiconductors, making power supplies more efficient and thinner

Gallium nitride (GaN)-based products can achieve higher energy efficiency, helping engineers design more compact power supplies for a variety of consumer, industrial and automotive applications

First product in STMicroelectronics PowerGaN family now in production; others in different packages and form factors to follow soon

December 17, 2021, China - STMicroelectronics (ST), a global semiconductor leader serving multiple electronic applications, has launched a new series - Gallium Nitride (GaN) power semiconductors. This series of products belongs to STMicroelectronics' STPOWER product portfolio, which can significantly reduce the energy consumption and size of various electronic products. The target applications of this series include built-in power supplies for consumer electronics, such as chargers, PC external power adapters, LED lighting drivers, TVs and other home appliances. The global production of built-in power supplies for consumer electronics is large, and if energy efficiency is improved, carbon dioxide emissions can be significantly reduced. In higher power applications, STMicroelectronics' PowerGaN devices are also suitable for telecommunications power supplies, industrial drive motors, solar inverters, electric vehicles and their charging facilities.

“Commercialization of GaN-based products is the next frontier for power semiconductors, and we are ready to unleash the potential of this exciting technology,” said Edoardo Merli, Vice President and Power Transistor Division Manager, Automotive and Discrete Product Group, STMicroelectronics. “Today, ST announced the first product in a new family of STPOWER portfolio, bringing breakthrough performance to consumer, industrial and automotive power supplies. We will gradually expand the PowerGaN portfolio to enable customers everywhere to design more efficient and smaller power supplies.”

Technical Details

Gallium nitride (GaN) is a wide bandgap compound semiconductor material with much higher voltage tolerance than traditional silicon materials without affecting on-resistance performance, thereby reducing conduction losses. In addition, GaN products have higher switching efficiency than silicon-based transistors, which can achieve very low switching losses. Higher switching frequencies mean that smaller passive components can be used in application circuits. All these advantages allow designers to reduce the total loss of power converters (reduce heat) and improve energy efficiency. Therefore, GaN can better support the lightweighting of electronic products. For example, PC power adapters using GaN transistors are smaller and lighter than the chargers that are common everywhere today.

According to third-party estimates, after using GaN devices, standard mobile phone chargers can be slimmed down by up to 40%, or output greater power under the same size conditions, and similar performance improvements can be achieved in energy efficiency and power density, which is suitable for various electronic products such as consumer, industrial, and automotive.

As the first product of STMicroelectronics' new G-HEMT transistor family, the 650V SGT120R65AL features a maximum on-resistance (Rds(on)) of 120mΩ, a maximum output current of 15A, and a Kelvin source pin for optimized gate drive. The product is currently available in the industry-standard PowerFLAT 5x6 HV compact surface-mount package, and its typical applications are PC adapters, USB wall chargers, and wireless charging.

Engineering samples of the 650V GaN transistors under development are now available, including the 120mΩ Rds(on) SGT120R65A2S in 2SPAK™ advanced laminate package, which eliminates the wire bonding process and improves energy efficiency and reliability for high-power, high-frequency applications. The SGT65R65AL and SGT65R65A2S both have an on-resistance of 65mΩ Rds(on) and are packaged in PowerFLAT 5x6 HV and 2SPAK, respectively. These products are expected to be in mass production in the second half of 2022.

In addition, the G-FET family introduces a new cascode GaN transistor, the SGT250R65ALCS, in a PQFN 5x6 package with 250mΩ Rds(on), which will be available for sampling in Q3 2022.

The G-FET™ transistor series is a very fast, ultra-low Qrr, robust GaN cascode or d-mode FET with standard silicon gate drive suitable for a wide range of power supply designs.

The G-HEMT™ transistor series is an ultrafast, zero Qrr, enhancement mode HEMT that is easily parallelable and well suited for very high frequency and power applications.

Both G-FETs and G-HEMTs belong to the PowerGaN family of the STPOWER product portfolio.