Anker Innovations, a leader in mobile charging and consumer electronics, announced that it has partnered with the top industry leaders in Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology to develop a new generation of charging solutions for both home and on-the-go.
“GaN is allowing us to completely change the way we charge our electronics by delivering better power transfer efficiency, faster-charging speeds, and smaller, more portable chargers,” said Steven Yang, CEO of Anker Innovations. “Our partners provided exclusive access to cutting-edge GaN technology that empowered us to create chargers that last longer and are more sustainable.”
To develop its new, higher-watt GaN chargers (output of over 100W), Anker partnered with Infineon, one of the world’s leaders in semiconductor technology, as well as Navitas, the industry-leader in GaN power ICs. By applying their technology, Anker was able to increase the efficiency of its new GaN chargers, reducing both the electricity lost by the charger while in use, as well as the chargers’ carbon footprint.
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Infineon Division President of Power & Sensor Systems, Adam White, said: “By combining Infineon’s Hybrid Flyback and CoolGaNTM switch in Anker’s new charging lineup, we achieved a system efficiency of 95%, amongst the highest level in industry, reducing energy losses by about 20% in comparison with other charging solutions. This is the first time Infineon’s HFB architecture and the CoolGaNTM switch have been applied together to any commercially available consumer electronics.”
Gene Sheridan, CEO of Navitas said: “Navitas’ next-generation GaNFast™ power ICs with GaNSense™ technology are used in the latest lineup of Anker GaN chargers, replacing slow and inefficient legacy silicon materials, reaching 97% peak efficiency and with up to 25% energy savings. By adopting our latest technology, Anker can reduce the CO2 footprint of the whole charger by up to 30% vs. legacy solutions.”
For its new, lower-watt GaN chargers (power output of under 100W), Anker partnered with Innoscience, a GaN power device manufacturer, and Southchip, a leading high-performance semiconductor design company.
“By using all GaN FET technology, each charger in Anker’s new series is powered by two Innoscience GaN power chips on both the AC side and DC side (an all-GaN solution)”, said Wei Wei Luo, founder of Innoscience. “Being the world’s first to adopt this technique, the new Anker chargers take full advantage of GaN, bringing its system’s efficiency and power density to a new level.”
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Stefan Ruan, CEO of Southchip said: “Southchip’s proprietary GaN differential drive technology is used in Anker’s new chargers, which highly integrates the GaN power devices and controllers to ensure the reliability of the system. The lab test data shows that with 100% GaN the energy loss of the AC to DC circuit is reduced by 7.2%, and the circuit efficiency is greatly improved.”
Anker’s new generation of GaN chargers will feature the latest version of PowerIQ, the company’s proprietary technology that allows chargers to intelligently detect the power needs of each connected device. Anker partnered with iSmartware, an international leading digital-analog hybrid SoC chip design company, in the development of the latest PowerIQ.
Eric Li, CEO of iSmartWare said: “iSmarWare’s new SoC single-chip solution for high-current and high-voltage DC-DC PD fast charging greatly simplifies the hardware circuit design and, together with Anker’s own PowerIQ, greatly reduces the energy consumed by the chargers by 40%.”
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