IN Brief:
- Power Integrations has demonstrated PowiGaN technology rated at up to 2200V.
- The company is targeting future data centre, electric-vehicle, renewable-energy, HVDC, and industrial power systems.
- No production part number, package, current rating, qualification schedule, or availability date has been disclosed.
Power Integrations has demonstrated PowiGaN gallium nitride technology rated at up to 2200V, extending the company’s high-voltage platform towards applications normally associated with silicon carbide and multi-device switch arrangements.
The company is positioning the development for artificial intelligence data centres, electric-vehicle power systems, photovoltaic inverters, battery storage, high-voltage direct-current infrastructure, and industrial conversion. It describes the technology as commercially available, although the launch does not identify a production part number, package, current rating, on-resistance, switching-energy figure, qualification status, or customer programme.
Power Integrations already offers PowiGaN integrated circuits rated at 1250V and 1700V. The 1250V devices are intended for the main power path in emerging 800VDC data-centre systems, while 1700V devices are being designed into single-stage auxiliary supplies. The 2200V rating is intended to provide additional voltage margin as infrastructure developers consider bus voltages above today’s mainstream designs.
Industry roadmaps cited by the company point towards 1500V distribution in future data centres. Raising distribution voltage reduces current for a given power level, which can cut resistive losses and reduce the amount of copper required in cables and busbars. The change also increases demands on insulation, protection, switching, connector design, test procedures, and maintenance practices.
Gallium nitride is attractive because it can switch at high frequency with relatively low switching loss. Higher frequency can reduce the size of transformers, inductors, and filters, but it also makes circuit layout, parasitic inductance, gate control, electromagnetic compatibility, and protection response more critical. A higher blocking-voltage rating is therefore useful only when the package and application design preserve those switching advantages.
The 2200V demonstration moves GaN into a voltage range where silicon carbide has held an established commercial position. SiC devices offer high blocking voltage, strong thermal performance, and mature options for traction, grid, and industrial conversion. GaN can offer faster switching, but system designers must compare conduction loss, short-circuit behaviour, avalanche capability, thermal resistance, package isolation, gate-drive requirements, and cost rather than selecting on voltage alone.
Stacking lower-voltage GaN devices is another alternative. Series-connected switches can share the bus voltage, although they require careful dynamic balancing and coordinated gate control. Unequal switching or device tolerances can place excessive stress on one device, while additional drivers, isolation, and sensing increase component count. A single higher-voltage switch could simplify the topology if its current handling and switching performance support the target power level.
Power Integrations has not disclosed whether the 2200V technology will first appear as a discrete switch or within one of its highly integrated controller products. Its established approach combines a high-voltage device with control, protection, feedback, and isolation functions, which can reduce external circuitry in flyback and other power-supply designs. Higher-power main-path applications may demand different packaging and thermal arrangements.
The announcement also leaves reliability questions open. Data-centre, automotive, solar, and grid equipment require qualification data covering lifetime, temperature cycling, humidity, voltage stress, surge behaviour, and repetitive switching. A laboratory voltage rating establishes capability, but production adoption will depend on statistical yield, device variation, package creepage and clearance, and long-term field performance.
Power Integrations’ existing 1250V design material provides a nearer-term reference point. A 60W isolated flyback design using a 1250V PowiGaN switch operates from inputs up to 480VAC, demonstrating how the company integrates high-voltage GaN into practical conversion hardware. The 2200V platform is intended to extend that approach towards systems with substantially greater bus voltage and power.
The development is technically significant because it broadens the voltage envelope available to GaN designers, but the headline rating is only the first engineering threshold. Datasheets, packages, reference designs, switching waveforms, thermal data, qualification results, and production availability will determine whether 2200V PowiGaN becomes a practical alternative to SiC in high-voltage converters or remains a technology marker on the company’s roadmap.
