EPC will exhibit more than 20 demonstrations showing how GaN technology’s superior performance is changing the way we live and company experts will deliver six technical presentations on GaN FET technology at APEC^® 2016, the premier global event in applied power electronics

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — March, 2016 — The EPC team will be presenting six technical presentations on gallium nitride (GaN) technology and applications at APEC 2016 in Long Beach, California from March 20th through the 24th. In addition, the company will feature its latest eGaN^® FETs and IC’s as well as their customers’ end products that are enabled by eGaN technology. Demonstrations will include wireless power systems that span the full power range of Qi and AirFuel standards and a multi-mode solution, a single stage 48 V – 1 V DC-DC converter, 3-D real-time LiDAR imaging camera, and an LTE compatible envelope tracking supply in booth #2244.

Power transistors with faster switching speeds will enable power supplies with smaller form factors and higher energy transfer efficiencies. Indeed, the elimination of heat sinks will give designers the ability to visualize entirely new form factors for power bricks and modules, including those enabling wireless power transfers. Gallium-nitride (GaN) transistors fabricated on silicon substrates can boost efficiencies and help shrink the footprint of power supplies.

Electronic Design
March, 2016
Read article

This article presents an envelope tracking power supply using EPC8004 high frequency eGaN^® FETs for 4G LTE wireless base station infrastructure. An ET power supply with four-phase soft-switching buck converter using eGaN FETs is able to accurately track a 20 MHz 7 db PAPR LTE envelope signal with greater than 92% total efficiency, delivering 60 W average power. The design is scalable to satisfy different power levels by choosing different eGaN FETs.

Bodo’s Power Systems
Yuanzhe Zhang, Ph.D., Michael de Rooij, Ph.D.
March, 2016
Read article

EPC9065 development board has the highest power and highest efficiency at 6.78 MHz for the AirFuel^TM wireless power standard, using eGaN^® FETs

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.— February 2016 — Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) announces the EPC9065, a development board that can serve as the amplifier stage for AirFuel^TM Alliance Class 4 and Class 5 wireless power transfer applications. This board is a Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) differential-mode class-D amplifier development board configured at, but is not limited to, 6.78 MHz (Lowest ISM band).

New EPC2040 eGaN^® FET offers extremely fast and consistent switching, enabling greater resolution and accuracy in applications dependent upon pulsed laser drivers, which include LiDAR systems used for guidance in 3D sensing in augmented reality systems and autonomous vehicles

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — February 2016 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) announces the EPC2040 power transistor, an extremely small, fast switching gallium nitride power transistor that enables superior resolution, faster response time, and greater accuracy for high speed end-use applications. High stability of the threshold over temperature ensures the high stability as the laser heats up. For example, this product is ideal for pulsed laser drivers used in LiDAR technology, the technology at the heart of autonomous vehicle guidance systems and augmented reality platforms. The end result of the EPC2040’s superior performance is increased accuracy and higher resolution in these systems.

In this installment, we present a method to design a suitable EMI filter that can reduce unwanted frequencies to levels within radiated EMI specifications, and do this without negatively impacting the performance of the wireless power coil. In addition, the overall radiated EMI design aspects will also be covered.

EEWeb - Wireless & RF Magazine
Michael de Rooij, Ph.D.
February, 1, 2016
Read article

EPC9059 development board showcases industry’s first monolithic half-bridge enhancement-mode gallium nitride (eGaN^®) integrated circuits for high current, high frequency point-of-load applications for increased power density.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.— January 2016 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) introduces the EPC9059 half-bridge development board for high current, high frequency point-of-load (POL) applications using eGaN ICs to reduce power conversion size. The EPC9059 development board has a 30 V maximum device voltage with a 50 A maximum output current. In this application two 30 V EPC2100 eGaN IC’s operating in parallel with a single onboard gate driver to achieve higher output currents. GaN devices have superior current sharing capability compared to silicon MOSFETs, making them more attractive for parallel operation.

Improving low-voltage DC/DC converter performance with GaN transistors:
The emergence of commercially available and cost-effective gallium nitride (GaN) power transistors begins a new age in power electronics. There are significant benefits in using enhancement-mode gallium nitride FET (eGaN FET) devices in power converters for existing data center and telecommunications architectures centering around an input voltage of 48 VDC with load voltages as low as 1 VDC. High-performance GaN power transistors can enable new approaches to power data center and telecommunications systems with higher efficiency and higher power density than possible with previous Si MOSFET based architectures.

Power Systems Design
David Reusch, Ph.D., and John Glaser, Ph.D.
January, 25, 2016
Read article

Some of the best minds in our industry, like the group that was at a DesignCon 2016 book signing. Among them was Michael de Rooij, Efficient Power Conversion VP of Application Engineering who signed copies of his book Wireless Power Handbook, Second Edition. DesignCon attendees enjoyed browsing and buying books and having the authors autograph them as well. The authors also answered questions and discussed their areas of expertise with inquiring minds in attendance.

EDN Network
January 22, 2016
Read article

Produced by industry experts, EPC has posted a nine-part educational video series on design basics, DC-DC conversion, wireless charging, reliability, and other applications for gallium nitride FETs and integrated circuits.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – January 2016 – Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (www.epc-co.com) has expanded its video library on GaN technology with the addition of a nine-part educational video series designed to provide power system design engineers advanced technical information and application examples on how to design more efficient power conversion systems using gallium nitride-based transistors and integrated circuits.

EPC’s new development boards enable power systems designers to easily and quickly evaluate the high efficiency achieved with 200 V gallium nitride transistors in class-E amplifiers, current-mode class-D, and push-pull converters operating up to 30 MHz.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.— January 2016 — Providing an easy-to-use way for power systems designers to evaluate the exceptional performance of gallium nitride transistors and get their products into volume production quickly, Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) announces high efficiency, GaN-based differential mode development boards that can operate up to 30 MHz.

Award Recognizes Innovation in Power Device Technology for Enabling the Commercialization of GaN

EL SEGUNDO, Calif, — January 2016 — Today, Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) announced that its CEO Alex Lidow was selected as the recipient of the 2015 SEMI Award for North America for the innovation of power device technology, enabling the commercialization of GaN. Dr. Lidow is being honored for his work in the area of Process and Technology Integration.

Dr. Zhang will be creating benchmark envelope tracking designs and assisting customers in the use of eGaN^® FETs for high frequency, high- performance power conversion systems.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.—January 2016 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) is proud to announce that Dr. Yuanzhe Zhang has joined the EPC engineering team as Director, Applications Engineering.

According to Powerpulse.net, “This selection is based on EPC's domination of the 50 most-read product news stories for 2015. EPC products account 8 of the top 50 product stories for 2015 (as measured by readership). This is the first time that a single company has accounted for such a large number of product news stories (that amounts to 2 per quarter), including 1 in the Top 10 and 5 in the Top 20.”

PowerPulse.net
January 4, 2016
Read article

With the backdrop of slower global economic growth and expected higher interest rate in 2016, Alex Lidow, CEO of Efficient Power Conversion Corporation opines that companies looking for late-stage financing will see a greater emphasis on fundamentals such as revenue, margin and cash flow, and a lower emphasis on less-tangible metrics, such as the size of an audience without strong monetization.

Los Angeles Business Journal
December 23, 2015
By: Garrett Reim
Read article

With mega deals for mergers and acquisitions took place in the past year, would innovations be stalled? Alex Lidow, CEO of Efficient Power Conversion Corporation said if you look at semiconductor end sales in this century, we have only seen a 5% compounded annual growth rate. It’s clearly showing signs of an end market that is very large and very mature and in the same time, the cost for a new facility or new product has skyrocketed.

Market Watch
December 23, 2015
By: Therese Poletti
Read article

Recognized as an EDN Magazine Hot 100 Product for 2015, EPC2035/36 low-priced gallium nitride FETs give better performance, smaller size, and lower cost than an equivalent silicon solution. This is the third time in 5 years that EPC’s eGaN technology has been recognized as a HOT 100.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — December 2015 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation, (www.epc-co.com) the leader in enhancement mode gallium nitride FET technology, announces that its EPC2035 (60 V) and EPC2036 (100 V) high frequency, low-priced eGaN FETs have been recognized with inclusion in the EDN list of 100 Hot Products for 2015.

In 2014, data centers in the United States consumed approximately 100 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy. To add insult to injury, the power needed to support this rapidly growing demand comes from an electrical grid that is wildly inefficient and is based on infrastructure that was created, in large part, more than a century ago. Just how significant is this waste? It turns out that the power grid supplies 150W of power to meet the demands of a digital chip that may need only 100W. Moreover, the amount of wasted energy is even greater because every watt of power lost through power conversion is transferred into heat. And it is necessary to remove that heat from the server farm by expensive and energy-intensive air conditioning. It takes about 1W of air conditioning to remove 1W of power losses, effectively doubling the inefficiency of this power conversion process.

New materials have emerged that can convert electricity more efficiently and at a lower cost. By eliminating the inefficiencies in this final stage in the server farm power architecture we can realize a direct saving of 7 billion kWh per year. This is doubled when air conditioning energy costs are added, bringing the total to about 14 percent of the total energy consumed by servers in the US alone. The cost savings are also significant. At the average cost of $0.12 per kWh, that’s a savings of $1.7 billion annually, which does not include the additional savings in system cost resulting from fewer power converters and air conditioners.

Datacenter Dynamics
December 15, 2015
By: Alex Lidow
Read Article

The Second Edition of the Wireless Power Handbook is an updated and expanded guide to designing efficient amplifiers for a wireless power transfer systems taking advantage of the superior performance of gallium nitride power transistors.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – December 2015 – Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (www.epc-co.com) announces the publication of the Second Edition of the Wireless Power Handbook. This edition is a practical engineering handbook designed to provide power system design engineers valuable experiences and points of reference critical to understanding and designing highly efficient wireless power systems using gallium nitride transistors.

EPC CEO and Co-Founder Alex Lidow comments on Tsinghua's $47B "Warchest" and quest to be #3.

Investor's Business Daily
by: Allison Gatlin
Read Article