Japan successfully uses GaN inverters in electric vehicle systems for the first time

A Japanese research team announced that the inverter they developed using the semiconductor material gallium nitride (GaN) has been successfully applied to electric vehicles for the first time, which is expected to save more than 20% of energy for electric vehicles. The research team is led by Hiroshi Amano, one of the winners of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics and a professor at Nagoya University in Japan. The inverter is one of the key components of electric vehicles. Its function is to convert the direct current stored in the battery into the alternating current required by the motor . It can also be understood as an electronic device that converts low-voltage (12, 24 or 48 volts) direct current into 220 volts alternating current.

This time, Amano Hiroshi's team developed a pure electric vehicle that can save 20% of energy compared to ordinary pure electric vehicles by using gallium nitride, and named the car "ALL GaN Vehicle". It has reached a speed of 50 kilometers per hour in the test , and plans to achieve a speed of 100 kilometers per hour this year. Compared with traditional technologies, the new inverter using gallium nitride is more efficient and can greatly reduce the power loss during conversion. It can also be applied to other environmentally friendly vehicles such as hybrid vehicles, which is expected to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The "ALL Gan Vehicle" was exhibited at the 46th Tokyo Motor Show which opened on the 24th. Hiroshi Amano said that the electric car using gallium nitride as a battery is the first in the world. However, they are still facing two research issues: the reliability and price of the device. They hope that the new technology can meet the use standards as soon as possible and strive to be put on the market in 2025. The research results of Hiroshi Amano and two other Nobel Prize winners in physics are the invention of blue light diodes made of gallium nitride crystals .

If we want to divide semiconductor materials into generations, we can say that the first generation of semiconductors represented by silicon is the cornerstone of integrated circuits , the second generation of semiconductors such as gallium arsenide has contributed to the rise of the information superhighway, and the third generation of semiconductors represented by gallium nitride, silicon carbide, diamond, etc. are important carriers for the development of next-generation information technology. The third generation of semiconductor materials not only have excellent photoelectric properties, but also have superior properties such as high thermal conductivity, high electron saturation rate, and strong radiation resistance. Therefore, they have become the forefront of the current semiconductor research field.