AUTONOMOUS & CONNECTED VEHICLES
Connected vehicles will make their connections through gallium nitride The high performance of many autonomous automotive features will likely depend on the use of super-fast GaN semiconductors. Alex Lidow Efficient Power Conversion (EPC)
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the rise of autonomous cars and electric propulsion as driving forces in automotive applications, a huge new market for power devices based on gallium nitride grown on a silicon substrate (GaN-on-Si) is emerging. IHS Markit estimates that 12 million cars will be autonomous by 2035. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Marklines, 32 million cars will have electric propulsion. Both trends are putting performance demands on power semiconductors. These demands are coming at a time when silicon is reaching its performance limits, thus further opening opportunities for GaN technology devices. Over the past eight years GaN power devices have been in mass production. And there have emerged several large automotive applications where GaN has significant advantages over the aging silicon MOSFET: LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), radar, 48-to-12-V dc-dc conversion, ultra-high-quality infotainment, highintensity headlamps, and on-board wireless power charging. One of the first automotive applications for GaN transistors and ICs was in LiDAR. Use of this object detection and distance measuring technology was prompted by the need to gain critical information as quickly as possible about
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8/7/18 10:34 AM