Renesas Expands GaN Portfolio with First Low-Voltage GaN FETs for AI Data Centers and Robotics

­Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, has expanded its GaN portfolio into low-voltage applications with its first family of 100V enhancement mode (E-mode) GaN-based discrete power transistors. The RTP100E005G1FL, RTP100E2P6G1FL, RTP100E1P8G1FL-DSC and RTP100E1P2G1FL-DSC low-voltage GaN FETs deliver ultra-fast switching speeds and enhanced thermal performance in efficiency-critical, high power density applications, including AI data centers, humanoid robotics, factory automation and industrial motor drives, power tools and solar microinverters. 

The new GaN FETs achieve industry-leading hard- and soft-switching figure-of-merit (FOM) performance, delivering up to 35% lower hard-switching FOM and up to 63% lower soft-switching FOM than comparable GaN devices. The low-voltage GaN devices also maintain a silicon-compatible footprint that allows for easy adoption into existing designs.

Power converters in today's data centers generally operate at switching frequencies of a few hundred kilohertz. But as AI servers and industrial infrastructure transition to 800 VDC power distribution and 48V bus architectures, many converter stages are moving toward megahertz-class switching to shrink magnetics, increase power density and improve overall efficiency.

Using low-voltage GaN in 800V high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power architectures simplifies power conversion design, significantly reducing passive component size, switching losses and cooling requirements. At the system level, this translates to better efficiency, fewer thermal management requirements and lower energy and BOM costs.

Broad GaN Portfolio Yields Greater Efficiency, Power Density and Design Flexibility

Built on Renesas’ recently expanded low-voltage E-mode GaN technology platform, this new transistor portfolio features ultra-fast GaN switching with low total gate charge (Qg) and output charge (Qoss) to minimize the overlap between voltage and current. It reduces energy lost in each conversion cycle across AI power supply units, motor drives and DC-DC power stages. The devices also offer zero reverse recovery (Qrr = 0), which eliminates energy losses for immediate switching efficiency gains. 

Fast switching increases power density and yields higher frequency operation by shrinking PCB footprint and reducing the size of magnetic and passive components, while low RDS(on) improves operating efficiency by curtailing conduction losses. Available bottom- and dual-side cooling configurations provide added heat dissipation and design flexibility. Depending on application requirements and power-conversion architecture, the low-voltage GaN devices can achieve up to 40–70% lower switching losses and up to twice the power density at the system level. 

The new GaN transistors are offered in multiple standard MOSFET-compatible packages, allowing customers to quickly migrate from silicon MOSFET layouts for faster design implementation without significant PCB rework. The package options, combined with a wide RDS(on) range (5 mΩ-1.2 mΩ), enable designers to scale across power levels and applications, including synchronous rectification, multiphase buck conversion and motor drives.

"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 performance from increasingly compact systems,” said Akhil Nair, Senior Director, Low-Voltage GaN at Renesas. "Our 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.”

High GaN Performance in Silicon-Compatible Footprints

The new GaN family is built on E-mode (normally off) GaN technology, which offers the performance advantages of GaN in a convenient silicon-compatible footprint. This helps designers capture the efficiency and power benefits of GaN and simplifies migration from existing silicon-based designs.

Key features of the new low-voltage GaN family

• 1 to 3% higher efficiency over silicon-based designs, eliminating Qrr loss 
• Drastic 40 to 70% reduction in switching losses 
• Doubled power density by reducing switching energy per cycle and supporting high frequency operation
• Smaller system footprint with higher switching frequency reducing magnetics size and lowering overall system losses
• Optimized thermal management reduces fan and active cooling requirements, cutting system complexity and BOM cost  

Additionally, with its lower total energy consumption per power stage, the new GaN family helps designers meet sustainability objectives. This is achieved by reducing the size of fans required for thermal and airflow management, enabling the use of smaller magnetics and shrinking overall PCB footprint, which contributes to AI data center and industrial energy efficiency targets.

Availability

The new low-voltage GaN power transistors are available now in FCLGA and FCLGA-DSC packages, along with corresponding evaluation boards. More information about these devices and development tools is available here.