Texas Instruments (TI) announced today that it is expanding its low-power gallium nitride (GaN) portfolio.

Designed to improve power density, maximize system efficiency and reduce the size of AC/DC consumer and industrial systems, the latest solutions leverage TI’s entire portfolio of GaN field-effect transistors (FETs) with integrated gate drivers to address common thermal design challenges, enabling adapters to deliver more power in a smaller footprint while lowering temperatures.

“Consumers today want power adapters that can charge quickly and energy-efficiently and are smaller, lighter and more portable,” said Kannan Soundarapandian, vice president and general manager of TI’s High-Voltage Products. “With our expanded portfolio, design engineers can bring the power density benefits of low-power GaN technology to more applications that consumers use every day, including mobile phone and laptop adapters, TV power supplies and USB wall outlets.”

TI's portfolio also addresses the growing demand for high-efficiency and compact designs in industrial systems such as power tools and server auxiliary power supplies. It was expected that this would contribute to resolving the issue.

The new portfolio of GaN FETs with integrated gate drivers, including the LMG3622, LMG3624, and LMG3626, offer integrated current sensing. Engineers claim that they can maximize efficiency by reducing associated power losses by up to 94% compared to conventional current sensing circuits used with discrete GaN and silicon FETs without the need for external shunt resistors.

TI's GaN FETs with integrated gate drivers enable faster switching speeds, preventing adapters from overheating. Engineers say they can achieve up to 94 percent system efficiency for AC/DC applications below 75 W and greater than 95 percent for AC/DC applications above 75 W. The new devices can reduce the solution size of a typical 67 W power adapter by up to 50 percent compared to silicon-based solutions.

Additionally, the portfolio is optimized for the most common topologies in AC/DC power conversion, including anti-resonant flyback, asymmetric half-bridge flyback, inductor-inductor converter, totem-pole power factor correction, and active-clamp flyback.

TI has a long history of operating its own manufacturing operations in diverse locations around the world, including wafer fabs, assembly and test plants, and bump and probe facilities in 15 locations, and has been investing in GaN technology manufacturing for more than a decade.

In particular, TI is known to have the production capacity to produce more than 90% of its products in-house by 2030, providing it with production capacity to supply products to customers for decades to come.