The idea of charger development is to enhance the charging power and reduce the size of the charger. If we want to achieve this goal, we must use GaN material. So how GaN, as a new material, comes to the top and changes our life?
1 Prequel to GaN’s debut: Type-C popularization and fast charging protocol specification
In the field of consumer electronics, gallium nitride is mainly used to solve the problems of large size and slow charging of chargers. It is a tedious task to increase the charging power and reduce the size of chargers, because there are many variables in the charging process that are much more important than the above two points. However, as the development of fast charging matures, many problems are solved one by one, “the charger is large, slow charging” problem becomes important. One of the signs of the maturity of fast charging technology is the popularity of Type-C interface and USB PD fast charging has become the industry standard.
Type-C interface front and back can be inserted attributes to facilitate the use of the user can also leave more redundant pins at the interface end, which unifies the product design level of multi-product line charging protocol to do the foundation; USB PD fast charging is the emergence of the protocol to standardize the unified standard, the current notebook, cell phones, gaming handhelds, etc. can use USB PD fast charging protocol, there are more peripheral product lines is being integrated into the USB PD protocol ecology.
This means that making a high-quality charger that supports mainstream charging protocols has strong market potential. As a result, chargers are also starting to make a roaring transformation. So why is GaN the only charger in the C-suite? It starts from the charger structure.
2 Without new materials, it is difficult for chargers to “lose weight”.
The small size of the charger has many parts integrated inside. For this kind of power-related equipment, safety is the first priority. Blindly reducing the size will affect the safety and charging efficiency, so the “weight loss” of the charger needs to pay attention to the safety of the charging process and heat dissipation.
The most important component of the charger is the MOSFET, this component determines the maximum input/output power of the charger, power conversion rate of the core indicators of play, which is also the core area of the charger heat. The success of the charger slim depends on the size of the MOSFET.
The second generation of semiconductor material gallium arsenide
Before the application of gallium nitride materials, MOSFET materials have gone through two iterations of base materials: the first generation of gallium and silicon, and the second generation of gallium arsenide and indium phosphide. The performance of the two generations of basic materials gradually can not keep up with the needs of the times, the current use of these two materials need to set aside enough space for heat dissipation, if the charger made on this material to increase the charging power, it is impossible to take into account the heat and charger volume.
3 “It’s my turn to perform”, gallium nitride on the charger stage
Gallium nitride is an artificial compound composed of nitrogen and gallium. Its good thermal stability, faster electron migration and higher thermal conductivity make it more suitable as a material for MOSFETs.
Gallium nitride has not been commercially available in consumer electronics for a long time, and since the introduction of consumer gallium nitride chargers in 2018, the development of gallium nitride chargers has sprung up, and a batch of gallium nitride chargers with novel design and higher power are available for consumers. In addition, GaN chargers are gradually becoming the standard for chargers attached to cell phones, and it is foreseeable that GaN chargers will have more space to play in the future.
4 Although GaN chargers are good, there are still problems to improve
For example, a high quality GaN charger can cover the charging needs of many kinds of devices; or use GaN material to make the core components of the charger smaller, so that the charger can be extremely portable (such as OPPO cookie charger). Although GaN is good, there are still two problems to be solved, one is the heat problem when charging, and the other is the charging whistle problem.
GaN charger working heat problem
The thermal stability of GaN material ensures that GaN chargers can operate safely and stably even at high temperature, but many third-party accessory manufacturers will sacrifice the thermal design of the charger to reduce the cost of the product and further compress the size of the charger, so some GaN chargers will neuter the thermal design at the beginning of the design.
At present, the mainstream heat dissipation solution is to reserve heat dissipation space and fill heat dissipation material for the charger.
GaN charger whistling problem
Whistling refers to the sound when the charger is working. Whistling does not affect the normal work of the charger, but mainly affects the user experience. At present, the mainstream solution to deal with whistling is to fill with sound insulation material. The final factor of whether the GaN charger will whistle or not depends on the cost of the charger. From the feedback of some users of GaN chargers, some GaN chargers do not pay attention to the whistling problem when working.
At present, both problems can be solved steadily, but this will be a hidden worry for the development of GaN chargers.
Conclusion: GaN has changed the product form of charger
To sum up, it is easy to find that the introduction of GaN charger is the product of fast charging technology leap forward: Type-C interface has opened the physical design bottleneck of fast charging, the emergence of USB PD fast charging protocol has laid the protocol foundation for the unification of fast charging of multiple product lines, and the GaN charger meets people’s requirements for charger portability. It can be said that the birth of gallium nitride charger is the product of the trend of the times.
Comparison of conventional charger and GaN cookie charger volume
Gallium nitride, as the third generation semiconductor material, not only can achieve the purpose of “weight loss” of charger, but also ensure the stability and safety of charging process. With the further transformation of GaN chargers, we believe that in a short time, GaN chargers will change the life of game book ‘brick chargers’.
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