Fifth Annual “GaN Systems Cup” China Power Supply Society Design Competition is Underway
OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada, May 28, 2019 – GaN Systems, the global leader in GaN (gallium nitride) power semiconductors, is sponsoring the distinguished China Power Supply Society (CPSS) design competition, now underway with a record-breaking 40 engineering teams entering the competition from leading universities throughout China. GaN Systems recently participated in the kick-off ceremony at Tsinghua University training the teams on the fundamentals of GaN power transistors.
The annual “GaN Systems Cup” challenge supports worldwide innovation in the power electronics industry leveraging the benefits of GaN transistors. As GaN technology continues to be incorporated into numerous power systems designs in today’s most demanding industries, including data centers, renewable energy systems, industrial, automotive, and consumer electronics, the challenge gives emphasis to the importance of accelerating the development of high performing system designs with GaN.
“Now in our fifth year and drawing the highest number of participating students to date, the GaN Systems Cup continues to bring excitement in what’s possible with new design approaches,” said Jim Witham, CEO of GaN Systems. “GaN has become an important piece in addressing the power and technology challenges in areas such as data centers, computer chargers and adapters, renewable energy, wireless charging, autonomous and electric vehicles, and more. We look forward to seeing the innovations that teams will bring to the table.”
The contest allows students to compete for prizes and gain real world, hands-on experience using GaN Systems’ 650 V power transistors from design to build. This year’s challenge is to design a high-efficiency, high power density AC/DC power supply for data center server power applications with a 400 W rated output power, 220 VAC input voltage range/48 DC output voltage and achieve 94% efficiency at 50% load, and greater than 3W/cm3 power density. Additional factors such as input and output power quality and total cost are also evaluated as part of overall performance. The CPSS recently announced that 30 of the 40 teams have made it to the next phase of the competition to deliver working prototypes by early June. They will announce the finalists on August 25, 2019 and announce the winning teams at the live finals and awards ceremony held November 1, 2019 during the CPSS conference in Shenzhen, China.
The contest is conducted in partnership with CPSS, the China Power Society Science Popularization Committee, and Tsinghua University. For more information, please visit the CPSS Competition page.
