IN Brief:
- Ideal Power has signed a long-term agreement with an Asian high-volume wafer foundry that has produced functional B-TRAN first silicon.
- The company has launched an 800V solid-state circuit-breaker reference design kit and received an initial stocking order from a distributor.
- A separate B-TRAN breaker prototype for evaluation in an 800V AI data-centre development environment remains targeted for late Q4 2026.
Ideal Power has signed a long-term supply agreement with an Asian high-volume wafer foundry and produced functional first silicon for its B-TRAN bidirectional power switch, giving the technology an additional manufacturing route as several solid-state circuit-breaker projects move towards evaluation.
The semiconductor developer disclosed the foundry milestone with its second-quarter results. Discussions with the unnamed supplier began earlier in the year, after which the foundry fabricated the first functional B-TRAN devices under the relationship. Ideal Power says the facility has capacity to support higher-volume industrial and automotive programmes if current development work converts into production.
The manufacturing agreement arrives alongside an 800V solid-state circuit-breaker reference design kit intended to accelerate customer evaluation of B-TRAN. Ideal Power says one of its distribution partners has placed an initial stocking order for the kit.
Reference hardware is an important step for a power semiconductor that is still moving through design-in activity. Engineers need to characterise gate drive, conduction and switching losses, thermal behaviour, protection logic, current sensing, fault interruption, and physical layout before a device can be assessed as part of a complete breaker or contactor.
B-TRAN is designed as a bidirectional semiconductor power switch, allowing controlled current flow in either direction without constructing the same function from separate unidirectional devices. Ideal Power is pursuing applications including solid-state circuit breakers, contactors, static transfer switches, battery disconnects, and other high-power switching systems.
One of those opportunities is the move towards 800V DC distribution in high-density AI data centres. Raising distribution voltage reduces current for a given power level, helping to reduce conductor losses and some of the physical burden around increasingly large compute loads. Fault interruption becomes more demanding, however, because DC networks lack the natural current zero crossing that assists conventional AC interruption.
Ideal Power says its lead Asian customer is completing low-current B-TRAN solid-state circuit-breaker prototypes, with units expected to move into internal testing. The company has also said it expects B-TRAN-enabled products from that customer to become available for AI data-centre and grid customers during the fourth quarter.
A separate development programme involves an industry partner building an intelligent B-TRAN circuit-breaker prototype for evaluation by a US hyperscaler. The development environment is associated with an 800V DC architecture for next-generation AI infrastructure, and prototype delivery remains targeted for late Q4 2026.
That programme remains an evaluation rather than a production award. Ideal Power has not announced a volume deployment with the hyperscaler, and the commercial outcome will depend on electrical performance, qualification, system integration, reliability, and the economics of replacing or supplementing mechanical protection.
The new foundry agreement nevertheless removes one practical question from that development path. A semiconductor technology moving into industrial protection needs a repeatable wafer supply with sufficient capacity to support qualification lots and eventual customer production. Functional first silicon is the beginning of that process rather than its completion.
Packaging, switching endurance, fault behaviour, thermal cycling, yield, and manufacturing variation will all have to be characterised as programmes move towards higher current and higher voltage. Power components can perform convincingly on an evaluation board yet still require substantial work before they satisfy the fault and lifetime requirements of critical infrastructure.
Ideal Power is pursuing automotive development in parallel, including custom-packaged B-TRAN samples supplied to Stellantis for solid-state contactor work. That gives the device another demanding qualification path, although automotive and data-centre switching impose different electrical, thermal, safety, and product-lifecycle requirements.
The commercial base remains small relative to the scale of the opportunities being discussed. Ideal Power continues to report limited revenue and is still working to convert engineering engagements into design-ins and production orders. The foundry agreement, reference design, and prototype activity should therefore be read as evidence of development progress rather than proof that B-TRAN has reached broad market adoption.
For the technology, the next consequential milestone is no longer another laboratory switching result. It is whether customers can qualify the foundry-produced devices and turn today’s breaker prototypes into repeatable production orders.
