Something to watch, Enphase endorsed GaN as their preferred solution for their inverters for solar panels.
If GaN on GaN or Si can hit commercial yields, it could become a real competitor to SiC.
seekingalpha.com
Badrinarayanan Kothandaraman
Yeah, we are actually working on IQ 9 at this time. In IQ 19 our vision is basically obviously smaller, cheaper, faster, producing a lot more power than IQ 8. Right now we are focused on a few areas. One is, we'd like to see how to reduce the footprint of the transformers, the ECAPS, the 600 volt AC FET devices through some semiconductor process innovation. GaN transistors are becoming widespread, GaN on GaN, GaN on silicon, they are becoming widespread. The advantage that GaN gives is I can now run my AC FETs at a higher frequency. Because I can run it at a higher frequency, I can reduce my transformer sizes. And because I can reduce my transformer sizes the entire footprint can get a lot smaller.
Of course, this is me speaking theoretically and we need to demonstrate that with both prototype vehicles as well as qualifying reliability, et cetera. I expect that to take the next 12 to 18 months. And we will also be working on the next-generation as well to think about maybe sophisticated cooling themes, alternatives to porting etc. Alternatives to meaning -- so today we have -- between our gate drivers and our AC FETs, and our DC FETs, we have a lot of components there. Using semiconductor packaging and GaN, I may be able to collapse all of those to substantially less number of components. We'll be looking at those as well. So lot of R&D is going on. We hired our CTO a year-ago, his name is Hans, he is an outstanding guy. And we have started all of those discussions and there is a team actually behind it. Whenever Eric Branderiz our CFO says innovation, he mean -- he means that investment in the CTO team. We're investing a lot more than before.
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Joseph Osha
And then the second completely unrelated question is, it's interesting hearing you talk about wide bandgap FETs, can we imagine a world where all of the high energy MOSFETs in your device or GaN or I was kind of surprised you didn't mentioned silicon carbide, is that the way this is headed?
Badrinarayanan Kothandaraman
No, I did not mention silicon carbide. GaN is -- I think we think GaN is the way to go, but obviously we are only scratching the surface. We're working with a few companies. GaN on GaN, and GaN on silicon are two interesting technologies. They will help us reduce our footprint, support high-power. I mean, everything that we want. |
