Navitas expands into China
New office in Shenzhen offers a 300 percent increase in capabilities to support high revenue growth in that region
GaN chip company Navitas Semiconductor has opened a new office in Shenzhen, China which offers a 300 percent increase in capabilities to support high revenue growth in that region.
The state-of-the-art facility offers significant engineering capacity for Navitas to co-develop GaN-based power systems with customers and design partners. This investment supports the rapid growth of GaN mobile fast chargers, as well as the company’s recently-announced expansion plans to enable GaN-based data centres, solar installations and electric vehicles, which represent a multi-$B market opportunity for the company.
Navitas’ GaNFast power ICs integrate GaN power and drive plus protection and control to deliver simple, small, fast and efficient performance. With over 130 patents issued or pending, and significant trade secrets including a proprietary process design kit (PDK), Navitas believes it has a multi-year lead in next-generation GaN power ICs.
Data centre upgrades from legacy silicon to GaN are estimated to save almost $2B/year in electricity costs, while GaN adoption in solar microinverters has been estimated by Enphase Energy to enable 10x faster switching and a significant reduction in costs. Per-vehicle GaN content in passenger EVs is estimated as $50 for on-board fast chargers, $15 for DC-DC converters and then up to $200 for later adoption in traction drive.
“Alongside Hangzhou and Shanghai, the new state-of-the-art Shenzhen office is another, significant addition to Navitas China,” said Charles (Jingjie) Zha, VP and general manager of Navitas China. “Chinese demand for next-generation power systems is growing exponentially and with the world’s only fully-integrated GaN power ICs, Navitas is in a fantastic position to capitalize on that growth. The new facilities demonstrate our commitment to support expanded customer demands in China.”
Navitas’ new office is in the Baidu International Building, in the high-density Nanshan District. The building won the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat 2019 award for sustainable and healthy cities. Navitas estimates that each GaN power IC shipped saves 4kg of CO2 emissions vs. legacy silicon chips.
