In Texas Instruments‘ ongoing "Technology Frontiers" series of blogs, some of TI‘s best minds discuss issues such as today‘s biggest technology trends and how to address tomorrow‘s challenges.

Gallium nitride (GaN) enables entirely new power applications to operate at higher switching frequencies at the same voltage than previously used silicon transistors. This means that GaN can achieve higher efficiencies than silicon-based solutions under the same conditions.

TI‘s LMG5200 easily incorporates GaN technology into power solutions, further pushing the limits of conventional power density expectations. Building on decades of power test expertise, TI has performed millions of hours of accelerated testing on GaN and has built an ecosystem that enables GaN-based power designs.

GaN will find its place in power-dense places. Because it can make the power supply smaller while maintaining or improving efficiency. Currently, GaN is being designed for use in electronic power supplies, which convert electricity between AC and DC forms, change voltage levels and perform a variety of functions to ensure the availability of clean electricity. For some products, GaN is directly related to performance, and the role it plays depends only on different applications.

This technology can affect any device you plug into a wall outlet, such as PC adapters, audio/video receivers, and digital TVs. Wall adapters take up a lot of space and are unsightly, and the amount of power they waste due to heat is not to be underestimated. GaN can alleviate these problems to a large extent and save on electricity bills.

In audio applications, performance can be affected by electrical noise inadvertently introduced into the audio signal. GaN’s lower capacitance helps minimize noise by minimizing parasitic ringing and optimizing transition times to minimize distortion.

In data centers and servers, GaN reduces power losses to power the cloud. Additionally, GaN‘s ability to shrink the size of power solutions will free up space for more processors, memory or storage.

Customers who specialize in telecom power for network switching equipment share the same concerns. The development of new higher-voltage architectures to reduce distribution losses and take full advantage of GaN to achieve lower-voltage one-step conversion is the current industry trend, which was previously not very efficient in similar silicon material solutions. In base stations, for example, customers can reduce power consumption by maintaining the standard 48 volts and converting that voltage directly to the voltage levels required by digital circuits. A common architecture today reduces the supply voltage from 48 volts to 12 volts, and then further reduces the voltage to the voltage levels required by digital circuits. Now, customers can use fewer converters, thereby reducing power losses.

In the next few years, GaN will reduce adapter size while providing greater output power. With that will come wall adapters that are easy to carry, but also support higher capacity batteries that can support longer runtimes and power larger/better displays.