For the ZXZC Awards 2022, the GaN-based motor controller from Shanghai Edrive Co.,Ltd. has applied for the Top 100 Players of China's New Automotive Supply Chain.

Photo credit: Shanghai Edrive Co.,Ltd.

Description:

The GEN-Ⅲ wide band gap semiconductor-GaN is used as the power unit device of the motor controller instead of the traditional IGBT. For the power unit, GaN devices with top cooling (special CCPAK package) were used, and four parallel devices are adopted. The highest working voltage can up to 420VDC, meanwhile the peak power is 35kW.

Photo credit: Shanghai Edrive Co.,Ltd.

Unique advantages:

1. Refer to the figures shown as below, the switch speed of GaN device is 10 times of IGBT. The switch power loss is much less than traditional power device thanks to its fast switch speed, around tenth of that.

2. Compared with the traditional IGBT scheme, the efficiency of GaN controller is significantly improved under the same test conditions, with the highest efficiency up to 99.34%, especially for the efficiency improvement under rated condition, so the vehicle NEDC efficiency will also be significantly improved.

3. This scheme uses traditional silicon procedure (GaN-ON-SI) devices. Compared with SiC devices, its manufacturing process is relatively simple.

Application:

Motor controller、DCDC、OBC, etc.

Prospect:

With the increasing demand for higher efficiency and higher power density of EV’s motor controller, the development and application of WBG semiconductor devices have become the focus. The characteristics of high frequency and high efficiency of GaN devices can well meet the needs of practical applications, and it is believed that GaN devices can also occupy a place in the future EV powertrain application field.