LIDAR is presently a subject of great interest, primarily due to its widespread adoption in autonomous navigation systems for vehicles, robots, drones, and other mobile machines. eGaN devices are one of the main factors in making affordable, high performance LIDAR possible in a small form factor thus further fueling the LIDAR revolution.

EDN
By John Glaser
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Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) will exhibit live demonstrations at PCIM Europe 2018 showing how GaN technology’s superior performance is transforming power delivery for entire industries including computing, communications, and automotive.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — May 2018 — The EPC team will be delivering five technical presentations on gallium nitride (GaN) technology and applications at PCIM Europe 2018 in Nuremberg, Germany from June 5^th through the 7^th. In addition, in Hall 7, Stand 539, the company will exhibit its latest eGaN^® FETs and ICs in customers’ end products that are enabled by eGaN technology.

EPC continues its 2018 GaN China Roadshow with participation in the upcoming WiPDA 2018 conference in Xian May 17^th through 18^th

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.— May 2018 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) started a GaN China Roadshow 2018 beginning in Shenzhen in March with technical presentations at the AirFuel Developers Forum. The second event in the roadshow was participation in SEMI China’s Power and Compound Semiconductor International Forum held in Shanghai, where Alex Lidow, CEO gave a keynote speech. Soon, from May 17 to 19, EPC will be meeting with engineers to share knowledge and demonstrations of eGaN^® devices, at WiPDA Asia IEEE workshop to be held at the Cullinan Huicheng Hotel in Xi’an.  Beyond WiPDA, the next stop for the EPC roadshow will be PCIM Asia, to be held in Shanghai, June 26^th through 28^th.  At this conference, EPC experts will be giving technical presentations on the use of GaN devices in wireless power transfer and LiDAR for autonomous cars.

Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) has successfully completed automotive AEC Q101 qualification for two gallium nitride devices.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.— May 2018 — EPC announces successful AEC Q101 qualification of two eGaN^® devices, opening a range of applications in automotive and other harsh environments.  The products, EPC2202 and EPC2203, are both discrete transistors in wafer level chip-scale packaging (WLCS) with 80 V_DS ratings and will soon be followed with several more discrete transistors and integrated circuits designed for the harsh automotive environment. 

EPC CEO & Co-Founder, Alex Lidow gives Lee Teschler from EE World Online a tour of the EPC booth at APEC 2018 where EPC demonstrations included a high-power density 48 V – 12 V non-isolated converter capable of delivering over 700 W. In addition, a range of 3-D real-time LiDAR imaging sensors used in autonomous vehicles were displayed. Also, a single desktop implementing a high power resonant wireless charging solution capable of generating 300 W to wirelessly power a wide range of devices including cell phones, notebook computers, monitors, wireless speakers, smart watches, and table lamps.

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In this video Alex Lidow, Founder and CEO of EPC, talks to Alix Paultre, Editor-in-Chief of Power Electronics News, about the various demonstrations of GaN-based solutions at the EPC booth at APEC 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. The high-frequency operation and other advanced performance advantages over Silicon enables GaN to empower applications from LIDAR to wireless power transmission. The booth exhibits include examples of these, from a real-time LIDAR demonstration to a running "wireless desk".

Power Electronics News
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LIDAR is made up of a laser (or arrays) capable of transmitting pulsed light over the required range of interest, and a high-speed, low-noise receiver for reflected signal analysis. A portion of this light is reflected or scattered back to the receiver according to the reflectivity of the target.

EDN Network
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Developers are hard at work on the machine learning necessary for safer and more-autonomous vehicles. But all the AI in the world won’t be enough if the car relies on inadequate sensors. That was clearly demonstrated in one fatal Tesla crash that occurred in part because the car’s camera didn’t correctly identify an oncoming truck. To ensure smart vehicles have a reliable model of surrounding objects — particularly the ones the cars identify as “threats” — most rely on one or more lidars, or laser-based remote sensors.

Extreme Tech
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This article takes a deep dive into lidar technology. It explains how the technology works and the challenges technologists face as they try to build lidar sensors that meet the demanding requirements for commercial self-driving cars.

The bottom line is that while bringing lidar costs down will take a significant amount of difficult engineering work, there don't seem to be any fundamental barriers to bringing the cost of high-quality lidar down below $1,000—and eventually below $100. That means the technology—and ultimately, self-driving vehicles that depend on lidar—should be well within reach for ordinary consumers.

Ars Techinca
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EPC2049 GaN power transistor offers power systems designers a 40 V, 5 mΩ power transistor about 8 times smaller than equivalently rated silicon MOSFETs for point of load converters, LiDAR, and low inductance motor drive.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — December 2017 — EPC announces the EPC2049 power transistor for use in applications including point of load converters, LiDAR, envelope tracking power supplies, class-D audio, and low inductance motor drives. The EPC2049 has a voltage rating of 40 V and maximum R_DS(on) of 5 mΩ with a 175 A pulsed output current.

Within the AirFuel^TM Alliance booth at CES 2018, EPC will show how gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors are at the core of large surface area wireless power. In the EPC hospitality suite, wirelessly powered systems for the home and GaN based, industry-leading LiDAR systems used in autonomous vehicles will be on display.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — December 2017 — Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) will be demonstrating the power of eGaN^® technology to enhance two game-changing consumer applications – wireless power and LiDAR for self-driving cars – at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, January 9^th through the 12^th.

Ultra-fast transition eGaN FETs used on the EPC9126HC can drive high current pulses up to 150 A and pulse widths as low as 5 ns, thus enhancing the quality of information a LiDAR system will detect, including the accuracy, precision, and processing speed.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — November 2017 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) announces the availability of the EPC9126HCa 100 V, 150 A high current pulsed laser diode driver evaluation board. In a LiDAR system, used to create 3-D maps for autonomous vehicle applications, speed and accuracy of object detection is critical. As demonstrated by this board, the rapid transition capability of eGaN FETs provide power pulses to drive the laser up to ten times faster than an equivalent MOSFET, thus enhancing the overall performance of a LiDAR system.

EPC2040, an eGaN^® power transistor optimized for LiDAR applications, placed first in the Passive Components & Discrete Semiconductors category of ECN magazine’s prestigious 2017 Impact Award.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif — November  2017 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation’s (EPC) is proud to announce that Electronic Component News (ECN) — a leading trade publication for electronic design engineers — has awarded the EPC2040, enhancement mode gallium nitride (eGaN) transistor its ECN Impact Award for 2017 in the Passive Components and Discrete Semiconductors category.

EPC’s latest family of eGaN^® transistors and ICs takes a quantum leap in increasing Performance while reducing costs for new and existing applications currently served by MOSFETs 

EL SEGUNDO, Calif — September 2017 Efficient Power Conversion Corporation’s Gen 5 eGaN^® transistor and IC family has been honored with an Electronic Products China / 21iC Media’s “Top 10 Power Products – Best Application Award.” The award presentation was announced on September 15^th, 2017 in Beijing, China during 21iC Power Conference 2017.

EPC’s new EPC9083 development board enables power system designers to easily and quickly evaluate the high efficiency achieved with a high performance 200 V gallium nitride transistor in a class-E amplifier used in wireless power, LiDAR, current-mode class-D, and push-pull converters operating up to 15 MHz.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.— August 2017 — 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 the EPC9083, a high efficiency, flexible, GaN-based differential mode development board that can operate up to 15 MHz, including 6.78 MHz which is popular for wireless power applications.

See some of the GaN applications demonstrated by Efficient Power Conversion Corporation at APEC 2017.

EDN Network
April 3, 2017
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At APEC 2017, Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) showcased applications using eGaN technology in an effort to prove that it will soon change the way we live.

Electronics360
March 29, 2017
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Alex Lidow, CEO of Efficient Power Conversion (EPC), assesses where the driverless vehicle sector is headed and the technologies which will help it realize its potential…

The Stack
March 17, 2017
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Light detection and ranging (lidar) is a versatile light-based remote sensing technology that recently has been the subject of great attention. It has shown up in a number of media venues and has even led to public debate about the engineering choices of a well-known electric car company, Tesla Motors. While this article is not going to enter the fray, it will provide some background on lidar and discuss its strong connection to power electronics technologies.

Published in: IEEE Power Electronics Magazine ( Volume: 4, Issue: 1, March 2017 )
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EPC introduces EPC2045 and EPC2047 eGaN^® FETs that are half the size of prior generation eGaN transistors with significantly higher performance.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — March 2017 — Efficient Power Conversion Corporation, the world’s leader in enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN^®) power FETs and ICs advances the performance capability while lowering the cost of off-the-shelf gallium nitride transistors with the introduction of the EPC2045 (7 mΩ, 100 V) and the EPC2047 (10 mΩ, 200 V) eGaN FETs. Applications for the EPC2045 include single stage 48 V to load Open Rack server architectures, point-of-load converters, USB-C, and LiDAR. Wireless charging, multi-level AC-DC power supplies, robotics, and solar micro inverters are example applications for the 200 V EPC2047.