A brief discussion on the application cases of GAN in automobiles

Nexperia has produced a report titled Application Specific MOSFETs and GaN Solutions for the Automotive Market, which mainly looks at it from the perspective of GAN. Some of the content in it is worth discussing in detail.

From a global perspective, luxury electric vehicles tend to adopt 800V systems, with the core advantages of low current (less copper wire), lower conduction loss and faster charging speed. Zhineng believes that by 2025, China's 150,000 products under development will follow the 800V system. We can see that the main range of products above 60kWh and priced between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan are all 800V.

In other words, from the current perspective, based on cost advantages, in the short term, if everyone wants to use performance to impact the existing pattern, they will definitely go to 800V. Here, the choice of power range is predicted, and we can focus on whether it is possible to achieve:

◎ 400V system: 650V IGBT 55%, WBG (SiC+GaN) 45%

◎ 800V system: 1200V IGBT accounts for 10%, that is, specially adjusted IGBT products; 1200V SiC will account for 85% of 800V

Nexperia's technology exploration

Nexperia's presentation focused on its products.

In terms of technical details, the current of each channel in linear mode may cause local heating. If the Cell Pitch is set too close, this heating effect may trigger failure. Therefore, choosing a large Cell pitch and ensuring high-quality source metal are critical to controlling this heating effect, which also helps to obtain the best SOA (safe operating area) rating.

● European GAN application case (triggering MOSFET avalanche effect)

It is mainly used in traditional vehicles to replace traditional devices.

● GAN application case (half-bridge module)

It is mainly used in power amplifiers, power supplies, DCDC and vehicle chargers. You can also try driving inverters.

We need to continue to observe in this area, because the investment in power devices is indeed relatively large, the progress is relatively fast, and the impact on the entire power electronics is quite large.

Summary: From the device level, especially from the perspective of production capacity and cost, some car companies with the idea of ​​experimenting will choose the latest design. The entire underlying architecture of automotive electronics is accumulated from these devices.