April/May 2021

www.gansystems.com AUTOMOTIVE POWER 25 www.power-mag.com Issue 2 2021 Power Electronics Europe GaN Raises Electric Vehicle Powertrain Performance In recent years, the number of electric vehicles (EVs) have multiplied on our global roads. Industry analysts expect that 56 million new EVs will be sold in 2040. The electricity consumption that accompanies this growth will rise to 1,800 TWh, representing 5 % of global power according to Bloomberg NEF’s Electric Vehicle Outlook. A smart, smaller, lighter-weight powertrain is a key area in creating changes for the EV industry. Jimmy Liu, Technical Marketing Director, GaN Systems Inc., Ottawa. Canada The design challenge for tomorrow’s generation of electric vehicles continues to intensify with a clear focus on the search for maximizing range, faster charging, and lower cost electrification systems. GaN power transistors are a significant part of addressing these current and future industry challenges by enabling the creation of smaller, lighter, lower cost, and more efficient power systems, especially in high-performance powertrain solutions. Thus GaN power transistors can open the market for more energy efficient and practical vehicles. Figure 1 shows a typical powertrain architecture for an EV system, which includes three main electrical sections: The AC/DC Bi-directional On-board Charger (OBC) charges or discharges the energy to the battery. A bridgeless totem pole PFC together with a Conventional LLC (CLLC) resonant converter are present as an example for OBC’ Figure 1: EV powertrain architecture and key specifications Table 1: Comparison of power transistors and