TheLostSwedeUgreen, a leader

TheLostSwedeGaN & The Nexode Family
GaN, or Gallium Nitride, is the latest in semiconductor compounds with useful applications in radars, satellites, lasers, and now, chargers. With the inclusion of the GaN chips, Nexode chargers provide higher conversion efficiency, smaller size, and better heat dissipation than before.

thewanUGREEN has way more reach in developing countries than say Anker, which take forever to bring in their latest high end products to those same countries.

R0H1TNot sure about that, they seem equally rare if not more than Anker here.

lexluthermiesterThey're not just saying that. I own a number of items from them and everyone of them is high quality and of reasonable cost.

This is interesting.

bonehead123as GaN has been around for a while in certain circles, but is just now coming into the mass-market/consumer electronics audience

bonehead123As for the interesting part, not really, as GaN has been around for a while in certain circles, but is just now coming into the mass-market/consumer electronics audience :D

For GaN, the biggest issues relate to the maturity of the technology and fully understanding the failure mechanisms to allow for effective screening to isolate defective devices. “We’ve focused heavily on GaN’s industrialization processes and effective screening methodologies to ensure the highest levels of reliability,”

The modeling side is the issue. There’s still a long way to go. People need to understand the switching behavior for wide-bandgap devices under all conditions. To capture this in the model working under any conditions requires some time, but this will happen. I expect in a few years these materials are going to be easier to use.”

Another issue involves test. Defect density is still higher for GaN and SiC, which makes high coverage essential — especially when these are used in automotive or other safety-critical applications.
“Everyone is familiar with the silicon lifecycle diagram for these devices to ensure that we do not see the early life failures, which would result in early customer returns due to latent faults,” Harrison said. “Manufacturers of these devices run stress testing to ensure any latent faults in the device are uncovered before they end up in a vehicle. For this technology, that stress testing period can be quite extensive — many times longer than regular silicon. One of the challenges with SiC and GaN technology is low-temperature operation, which can impact the lifespan of the device. A lot of the risk can be removed by extensive testing. Differences in testing are more due to the conditions under which the test program is applied rather than the type of tests that are run.”

WirkoFor a while? I haven't been following, my best source is this artice at SemiEngineering from December 2021. It describes GaN and SiC as barely ready to enter industrial use, in electric cars and car chargers first and foremost.



Doesn't sound like it's a mature technology (or didn't, ten months ago). Reliability may be good enough for less critical consumer stuff like USB chargers, though.

bonehead123Well, I wasn't trying to imply that it was a 100% MATURE tech, only that the overall principles & designs, and a few early products have been around for ~2 years, which to me, is a "while" :)

I'm sure that in the next 12-24 months, we will see ALOT moar movement in this space, especially since the overall concepts & engineering designs have been essentially proven, and several products are gradually moving into the retail-consumer space, which almost always drives innovations, improvements, and reduced production costs :)