GaN is introduced into charging piles, with low power first

In the charging pile market, with the promotion of high-voltage DC fast charging, SiC power devices have been used in some charging piles above 400kW. GaN is also a third-generation semiconductor. Due to its advantages in high-frequency applications, some manufacturers are also promoting GaN to enter charging piles.

GaN charging pile applications have many advantages.

Currently, GaN is mainly used in low-power power supply products such as consumer electronic chargers. Some industrial-level applications include photovoltaic micro-inverters, server power supplies, etc. These powers are generally a few kW and not too high. The explosion of the electric vehicle market has made GaN companies seek to enter the automotive market to expand GaN's application market and growth space.

In the automotive pre-installation market, GaN is a device that has no large-scale application precedent in the automotive industry, and GaN itself has only just started to be used in industrial applications. Therefore, it is not easy to enter the automotive supply chain, especially when it comes to Driving safety in applications such as traction inverters.

So we can see that in automotive applications, GaN is currently mostly used in wireless/wired fast charging modules for mobile phones in the cockpit. For OBC and other slightly higher-power equipment that does not involve driving safety, many manufacturers have launched reference designs for GaN devices, and it will take some time to officially launch mass production.

On the other hand, the development of the electric vehicle market has also driven the demand for charging piles. There are various types of charging piles, ranging from 7kW to more than 500kW in terms of power. In the process of charging pile development, how to improve power density has always been an important issue.

To increase the power density, it is necessary to increase the switching frequency of the power switch tube. The advantage of GaN devices lies in the switching frequency. Therefore, if used in charging modules, it can achieve high-frequency switching while maintaining higher performance in high-voltage designs. efficiency. On the other hand, GaN has low switching loss, which brings another benefit to improving the conversion efficiency of charging piles. For private or public charging piles, it can reduce the cost of use to a certain extent.

At the same time, compared with automotive front-end applications, charging piles have relatively lower requirements for devices, and it is also less difficult for GaN devices to be introduced into the charging pile industry chain. Therefore, charging piles are a good incremental market for the GaN industry chain.

Low-power charging piles take the lead

, so starting from 2022, GaN companies and charging pile companies will cooperate to develop GaN charging pile products. In April 2022, Indie Power Systems in the United States announced plans to raise US$2 million to transform electric vehicle charging stations. It will use GaN technology, which can reduce 100Khz switching losses and overall manufacturing and charging costs, while ensuring higher performance than current market products. efficiency.

In May 2022, Hongguang Semiconductor announced a cooperation framework agreement with China Titan Energy Technology Group Co., Ltd. to carry out a three-year strategic cooperation. The cooperation content includes the technology promotion and product sales of gallium nitride fast charging piles.

In April 2023, Telaidian, the largest charging pile operator in China, announced that it had cooperated closely with Texas Instruments in the fields of DC charging equipment, AC charging equipment, and power distribution units (PDU). Texas Instruments provides smart drive solutions based on GaN FETs and specifically for SiC FETs to help achieve higher charging pile power density.

In August 2023, Baseus released the Nebula series of AC charging piles, introducing GaN gallium nitride technology into home charging piles for the first time, providing an environmentally friendly home charging solution with lower standby efficiency and less heat loss. The charging pile supports 7kW charging power, built-in 4G, and supports APP remote control.

In January this year, Infineon and Omron cooperated to launch the smallest and lightest V2X GaN charging pile in Japan, with a charging power of up to 6kW. Compared with similar traditional charging and discharging systems, its size and weight are reduced by 60%; based on Infineon's CoolGaN technology, the power efficiency of the V2X system is improved by more than 10% at light load and approximately 4% at rated load. %.