Navitas opens electric vehicle design center in Shanghai

Navitas Semiconductor has opened a new electric vehicle (EV) design center in Shanghai as it looks to further expand into the higher-power automotive GaN market.

Compared to traditional silicon solutions, GaN-based on-board chargers (OBCs) are expected to charge three times faster and save up to 70% energy, while GaN OBCs, DC-DC converters and traction inverters are expected to increase EV range by 5% and reduce battery costs, helping to accelerate global EV adoption.

By 2050, upgrading electric vehicles to GaN technology is expected to reduce carbon emissions from road traffic by 20% per year.

Gallium nitride (GaN) devices are a power semiconductor technology that can operate 20 times faster than traditional silicon chips. Navitas' GaNFast power ICs integrate GaN power devices, GaN drivers, protection and control to achieve energy savings, high power density, lower costs and higher reliability.

With a design center located in Shanghai, China, Navitas has an experienced team of power system designers with strong comprehensive capabilities in electrical, thermal and mechanical design, software development, and complete simulation and prototyping.

The new team will support electric vehicle customers globally from concept to prototype, to full certification and series production.

“The design center will develop schematics, layouts and firmware for fully functional electric vehicle powertrains,” said Sun Hao, the new senior director of the Shanghai Design Center. “Navitas will work with OBC, DC-DC and traction system companies to create world-class solutions with the highest power density and highest efficiency innovations to drive GaN into mainstream electric vehicles.”

Another significant advantage of using GaN technology is that manufacturing GaN power ICs produces 10 times less CO2 than silicon chips.

Taking into account use case efficiencies and material size and weight advantages, each GaN power IC is estimated to save a total of 4 kg of CO2 emissions. Overall, GaN has the potential to save 2.6 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year by 2050.