Cambridge GaN Devices gets development deal with PSU maker

Power IC company Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD) has signed a deal to develop power adapters and data centre PSUs with Chicony Power Technology of Taiwan, and Cambridge University Technical Services (CUTS).

“Chicony Power is one of the leading SMPS manufacturers in the world, so this agreement represents an incredible milestone in CGD’s journey,” said CGD CEO Giorgia Longobardi.

“Chicony Power intends to collaborate with CGD and HVMS because of their significant expertise in GaN,” said Chicony president Peter Tseng. “CGD has already delivered its second series of HEMT devices which, offer top-notch performance in terms of ruggedness and ease-of-use.”

HVMS is the University of Cambridge’s high voltage microelectronics and sensor group, headed by Professor Florin Udrea, who is also CTO of CGD. CEO Longobardi was also at Cambridge University.

Udrea will act as the lead consultant on behalf of CUTS.

“The HVMS group at Cambridge University has a history of 25 years in power device design, TCAD simulations and characterisation of power devices,” according to CGD. Chicony, CUTS and CGD will collaborate around a project that “is expected to deliver prototypes for high-density adapters for notebooks, and Titanium+ efficiency >100W/inch³ 3 – 6kW power supplies for data centre and server applications.”

CGD products are 650V GaN power transistors with monolithically integrated current sensing and gate drive circuits – the latter allowing drivers made for silicon mosfets to be used. externally instead of specialist GaN gate drivers.

The H2 series, claims CGD, has improved over-voltage robustness and higher noise-immune threshold compared with typical GaN HEMTs, plus dV/dt suppression and ESD protection, while keeping the GaN advantage of lower gate charge and lower Qoss compared with silicon mosfets.