Renesas Electronics has expanded its gallium nitride (GaN) chip lineup into low-voltage applications with its first family of 100V enhancement-mode (E-mode) GaN discrete power transistors. The new devices, the RTP100E005G1FL, RTP100E2P6G1FL, RTP100E1P8G1FL-DSC, and RTP100E1P2G1FL-DSC, deliver very fast switching speeds and improved thermal performance for efficiency-critical, high-power-density applications including AI data centers, humanoid robotics, factory automation, industrial motor drives, power tools, and solar microinverters.
The new GaN transistors achieve what Renesas describes as industry-leading figure-of-merit (FOM) performance for both hard and soft switching, meaning the two main ways a transistor transitions between on and off states. They deliver up to 35% lower hard-switching FOM and up to 63% lower soft-switching FOM than comparable GaN devices, while maintaining a silicon-compatible physical footprint that allows them to be dropped into existing circuit board designs without major rework.
Power converters in today's data centers typically operate at switching frequencies of a few hundred kilohertz. But as AI servers and industrial infrastructure move toward 800V high-voltage DC (HVDC) power distribution and 48V bus architectures, many conversion stages are shifting toward megahertz-class switching speeds to shrink the size of magnetic components, increase power density, and improve overall efficiency.
Using low-voltage GaN within 800V HVDC power architectures simplifies power conversion design, significantly reducing the size of passive components, switching losses, and cooling requirements. At the system level, this translates to better overall efficiency, reduced thermal management needs, and lower energy and bill-of-materials costs.
Built on Renesas recently expanded low-voltage E-mode GaN technology platform, this new transistor family offers very fast GaN switching with low total gate charge and output charge, properties that minimize the overlap between voltage and current during switching, which in turn reduces energy lost during each conversion cycle across AI power supplies, motor drives, and DC-DC power stages. The devices also offer zero reverse recovery charge, eliminating a source of energy loss that occurs in conventional switching and delivering immediate efficiency gains.
Fast switching speeds increase power density and support higher-frequency operation by shrinking the circuit board footprint and reducing the size of magnetic and passive components, while low on-resistance improves efficiency by reducing conduction losses, meaning the energy lost as heat while current flows through the device. Available bottom-side and dual-side cooling configurations provide additional heat dissipation and design flexibility. Depending on the specific application and power conversion architecture, the low-voltage GaN devices can achieve 40-70% lower switching losses and up to twice the power density at the system level.
The new transistors come in multiple standard MOSFET-compatible packages, letting customers migrate quickly from silicon MOSFET-based layouts without significant redesign work. These package options, combined with a wide range of on-resistance values from 5 mΩ to 1.2 Ω, let designers scale the technology across different power levels and applications, including synchronous rectification, multiphase buck conversion, and motor drives.
Akhil Nair, senior director of low-voltage GaN at Renesas, said customers adopting next-generation GaN technology for AI servers, robotics, industrial motor drives, and renewable energy systems are looking for ways to deliver more efficient power conversion from increasingly compact systems. He said Renesas' low-voltage GaN family delivers the efficiency, switching performance, and power density designers expect from GaN, while making it significantly easier to transition from existing silicon MOSFET designs.
The new GaN family is built on E-mode, or normally-off, GaN technology, which offers GaN's performance advantages in a convenient, silicon-compatible footprint, helping designers capture GaN's efficiency and power benefits while simplifying migration from existing silicon-based designs.
Key features of the new low-voltage GaN family include 1 to 3% higher efficiency than silicon-based designs, achieved by eliminating reverse-recovery losses; a substantial 40 to 70% reduction in switching losses; doubled power density by reducing switching energy per cycle and supporting higher-frequency operation; a smaller overall system footprint, since higher switching frequency reduces the size of magnetic components and lowers overall system losses; and optimized thermal management that reduces the need for fans and active cooling, cutting system complexity and bill-of-materials cost.
Renesas also notes that with lower total energy consumption per power stage, the new GaN family helps designers meet sustainability goals, achieved by reducing the size of fans needed for thermal and airflow management, enabling smaller magnetic components, and shrinking overall circuit board size, contributing to broader energy efficiency targets for AI data centers and industrial systems.
The new low-voltage GaN power transistors are available now in FCLGA and FCLGA-DSC packages, along with corresponding evaluation boards.
