Humanoid robotics is changing what motor drive electronics must do. In traditional industrial drives, the inverter is usually placed in an outside cabinet, connected to the motor by cables. However, in humanoid robots, actuators must fit into joints that replicate how people move like the shoulder, elbow, wrist, and even fingers. This architectural shift forces power electronics to migrate inside the motor housing, where space, thermal dissipation and dynamic response requirements are significantly more challenging.

In this video from APEC, Marco Palma, Director, Motor Drives Systems and Applications at EPC, presents advanced motor drive reference designs based on gallium nitride (GaN) technology. He first highlights the EPC91122 reference design, featuring the EPC33110 three-phase power module used to drive a mid-size drone motor and a high-torque humanoid robot joint. He then introduces the EPC91121, a highly integrated board for power tools, built on EPC’s latest Gen 7, 40 V GaN devices. Both platforms showcase compact form factor, high efficiency, and easy scalability from 250 W up to 5 kW for rapid prototyping.

Over the last few years, there has been phenomenal growth in the adoption of wide-bandgap semiconductors, in what seems to be a consolidated trend toward replacing legacy silicon products. Whereas silicon carbide has successfully targeted electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, gallium nitride (GaN) HEMTs have initially made inroads into consumer-oriented applications, primarily chargers and adaptors. Yet GaN is much more versatile than a simple MOSFET replacement for making chargers slimmer and lighter would suggest.

In this webinar, Michael De Rooij, GaN Application Fellow at Efficient Power Conversion (EPC), presents a high-performance 800 V (±400 V) to 12.5 V isolated converter for next-generation server power systems. He explains the cascade input (input-series, output-parallel) architecture using eight interleaved modules, combining a half-bridge primary with a push-pull secondary to cut ripple current, minimize capacitance, and improve thermal distribution. The speaker details the use of low-voltage GaN FETs, the isolation and gate-drive scheme, and measured efficiency above 98%. He concludes by introducing a new 800 V to 50 V, multi-kilowatt, 1 MHz design that doubles power density.

Marco Palma,  Director, Motor Drives Systems and Applications at Efficient Power Conversion (EPC), presents how gallium nitride (GaN) inverters are transforming motor control in humanoid robots. In this talk, he explains how fast-switching GaN devices with zero reverse recovery enable higher PWM frequencies, reduced dead times, and the elimination or reduction of electrolytic capacitors. The result is higher efficiency, higher torque per ampere, smaller form factors, and smoother joint operation. Palma details EPC’s reference designs for various humanoid joints - from arms and wrists to hips - covering integrated three-phase modules and high-current discrete solutions that scale from a few hundred watts to several kilowatts.

In this video, Microchip and EPC showcase their latest advancements in high-efficiency power conversion for next-generation data centers and AI servers. Andreas Reiter, Senior Technical Applications Engineer of dsPIC at Microchip and Michael De Rooij, GaN Applications Fellow, EPC present a 5 kW multi-level flying-capacitor PFC and an ultra-compact 800 V-to-12 V, 6 kW ISOP converter. They explain how low-voltage GaN devices, advanced DSP-based digital control, and sophisticated LLC startup sequencing enable dramatic size, loss, and EMI reductions. If you’re designing high-density server power supplies or exploring cutting-edge digital power architectures, this deep-dive will give you practical insights and concrete implementation ideas.

This presentation by Shengke Zhang, VP Reliability at EPC, addresses one of the most common questions in GaN power device reliability: how manufacturers can confidently guarantee a 10-year lifetime without waiting a decade to verify it. The talk introduces the reliability “bathtub curve,” explains the limits of standard 1,000-hour qualification testing, and presents the test-to-fail approach used to predict long-term wear-out behavior. Through a case study on 48 V intermediate bus converter (IBC) modules for data centers, Zhang highlights the impact of temperature cycling, failure-mechanism analysis, and physics-based lifetime modeling to ensure robust GaN performance in demanding high-power-density applications.

EPC has developed a new converter designed for artificial intelligence-based "sidecar" servers, where the power supply is racked separately from the information technology equipment. This board is a fixed-ratio converter that steps 800 volts down to 12 volts. To achieve a total output of 6 kW, the design utilises 100-volt to 12-volt modules that are each rated at 750 W. The inputs of these individual modules are cascaded in series, while their outputs are connected in parallel.

The entire 6 kW module has a compact physical footprint, measuring 106 mm by 47 mm, and is only 8 mm thick. This high level of miniaturisation is enabled by GaN technology.

EPC has demonstrated the EPC 91122 board featuring the EPC 3111 module, a 100-volt, three-phase module designed for motor control applications.

The board integrates a controller, power module, two current sensors, and a position sensor. Because the Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology enables switching at 100 kHz, the design solely relies on MLCC capacitors, completely eliminating the need for bulkier electrolytic capacitors.

In this webinar, Alex Lidow, CEO of Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) walks through how GaN has crossed a key performance boundary, now outperforming the best silicon MOSFETs at all voltages and in all topologies. You’ll see concrete data on on-resistance, hard and soft switching losses, and real-world efficiency gains in AI, server, and point-of-load converters - from tens of volts down to sub-1 V rails. Lidow also previews future integration-focused generations that push GaN even closer to its theoretical limits.

Gallium nitride (GaN) power devices are redefining the limits of switching converters by combining wide bandgap physics with lateral HEMT structures optimized for fast, low-loss operation. This article describes GaN as the natural successor to silicon MOSFETs in the 100–650 V class, showing how material figures of merit directly translate into lower on-resistance, higher switching frequency, and much higher power density at competitive cost.

Silicon power MOSFETs have driven the evolution of switch-mode power conversion since the late 1970s, replacing bipolar transistors, thanks to majority-carrier operation, ruggedness, and ease of drive. For decades, continuous structural improvements—cell pitch, trench, and superjunction—pushed R_DS(on) down while keeping breakdown capability and manufacturability. However, silicon is now essentially at its theoretical limit for unipolar devices in the 100–600 V range.

EDN
March 2026

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One of the oldest challenges of power electronics is the paralleling of multiple transistors to obtain a higher-current switch. This task is rarely straightforward, as two or more transistors never exhibit perfectly identical electrical parameters, preventing an even distribution of current.

For early designers of power converters, the feat was even more arduous because available components were current-driven bipolar junction transistors (BJTs). This means that no intrinsic stabilizing effect can be leveraged to help attain an even current sharing.  In fact, the required base-to-emitter voltage (V_BE) decreases as temperature increases (-2 mV/°C)—under normal operation—so even a small imbalance causes the transistor with lower V_BE to conduct more current and heat up further, leading to failures.

Power Electronics News
March 2026

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In this video, you will find a conversation with Alex Lidow - the inventor of the original Power MOSFET and HEXFET during his time at International Rectifier. Alex later became CEO of the company founded by his father and today is the Founder and CEO of Efficient Power Conversion (EPC), known for producing some of the most efficient GaN FETs on the market. In the discussion, you will hear the story of how the power MOSFET was invented - on Alex’s very first day on the job - and how that breakthrough helped shape modern power electronics.

The conversation also dives into silicon physics, the rise of GaN technologies, and the growing power demands of AI data centers and humanoid robots, offering a fascinating perspective that connects the origins of power semiconductors with the technologies driving the future of computing and electrification.

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This paper examines the impact of parasitic capacitances on the dynamic current sharing behaviour of Gallium Nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs) operating in parallel configurations. As GaN technology continues to gain prominence in high-performance power electronic systems, paralleling multiple devices has become a common strategy to increase current-handling capability.

Salvatore Musumeci PhD, Vincenzo Barba PhD, Michele Pastorelli Professor, Marco Palma MSc

ScienceDirect
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Over the past decade, AI workloads have relied on server architectures not designed for their rapidly growing power demands. Recently, the concept of “AI factories” has emerged, reframing data centers as productivity-driven systems optimized for high compute density.

Bodo’s Power Systems
March 2026
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The EPC33110 is a three-phase module that utilizes gallium nitride (GaN) monolithic integrated circuits, enabling the development of smaller, lighter motor drive inverters. Its compact design is ideal for drone and humanoid robot applications, supporting higher switching frequencies with respect to traditional silicon-based inverters, ultimately improving system size, weight, and performance.

Bodo’s Power Systems
December 2025
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With the advent of next-generation GaN transistors operating in the 40 V to 15 V range, R_DS(on) specifications have reached the re¬markable level of hundreds of micro-ohms , significantly outperforming comparably-sized power MOSFETs. To fully capitalize on the advantages of these ultra-low resistance FETs, careful PCB layout is essential to prevent any additional re¬sistance that could undermine their performance. This article will examine various layout strategies for GaN FETs, analyzing how dif¬ferent PCB configurations affect added resistance for each design.

Bodo’s Power Systems
October 2025
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The final installment of our three-part series explores the isolated DC-DC stage in server power supplies. The design features four LLC modules in an input-series, output-parallel (ISOP) configuration, capable of processing up to 5.5 kW between a 400 VDC bus and a 50 VDC output. This fixed-ratio converter delivers galvanic isolation and high performance for advanced server power architectures.

Bodo’s Power Systems
September 2025
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In an interview with Power Electronics News, Marco Palma, director of motor drive systems and applications at EPC, noted that the EPC91118 supports up to 15 Arms per phase for three-phase BLDC motors from a 15-V to 55-V DC input. Remarkably, the complete power stage, sensing, control, and communication features are all integrated into a 32-mm diameter board, setting a new benchmark for miniaturization in motor control.

Power Electronics News
July 2025
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GaN FETs are revolutionizing power electronics - faster, smaller, and CHEAPER than silicon MOSFETs. In this video from PCIM Europe 2025, EPC CEO Alex Lidow explains why GaN technology is now powering AI servers, satellites, and robotics. Learn how wide band gap semiconductors achieve 10x better performance than silicon, why GaN is actually less expensive at 100-200V, and how the new Gen 7 devices are 3x smaller than previous generations.

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