Wise plans co-packaged GaN digital controller
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French power startup Wise Integration is planning a co-packaged digital controller with gallium nitride (GaN) transistor to simplify the design of industrial and data centre AI power systems.
This comes as the company launches its digital controller for GaN-based totem pole power factor correction (PFC). The zero voltage switching (ZVS) switching algorithms are implemented in an STM32G4 controller from STMicroelectronics to form the WiseWare1.1 controller that supports switching up to 2MHz for smaller designs with an efficiency up to 98%.
“It’s a key milestone for the company to bring this digital controller onto the market, It a real differentiator that covers all medium power applications from 100W to 1kW,” Thierry Bouchet, CEO of Wise Integration tells eeNews Europe.
“We don’t have protection at sa system level so the strategy is to secure the microcontroller as soon as the firmware is implemented. We use security checks and use an encrypted code implementation and we have features in the code that we can recognise our IP that are linked to us. We are also thinking about licensing the IP.”
“The software architecture is compatible with all the architectures,” he said. “We have a visual interface to adjust the parameters to maximise the performance and adjust the range of power. The demo board is 300W PFC TP so the range can be adjusted.”
“Today the controller is compatible with all discrete GaN devices. If you use integrated GaN devices such as Navitas you can manage it through the GUI interface to select the voltage. There is a lot of compute power in the MCU for this and we validate it with all the GaN on the market,” he said.
“Today the G4 is a high end MCU and our strategy for 2026 is to system in package chip plus GaN to be compatible with other types of standard MCU or controller at a system level. This also means we will not be linked to one supplier. We are doing that design ourselves with the team in Ottawa to build this digital and analog die that makes this possible.”
A 300W totem pole PFC design using the Wiseware1.1 digital GaN controller
The Wise1.1 is aimed at premium consumer applications such as TV, PC and monitor power supplies where the form factor and cost is key with a 300W demo board. The co-packaged device is aimed at AI datacentre applications and industrial and automotive motor control designs where digital control is already used and it needs to be compatible with the existing customer MCUs.
With a low standby power of 18mW there is also opportunity in the integrated wall socket, he says. Other digital controller suppliers such as Pulsiv in the UK with its Osmium controller and 240W reference design and Eggtronic in Italy with a 70W design are also aiming for this high volume market with a power converter in a plug socket.
“We initially targeted the socket market four years ago but it was not mature enough, Now that we have the solution qualified it makes sense to introduce this for a USB PD socket in the wall. We have a 100W demo board that fit into the size requested to fit into the wall. The main difficulty is in Europe, in France and Denmark it’s the smallest in the world. Soon we will have a reference design and the digital controller is key as without it, it is not possible to be compatible with the form factor.
The company raised €15m last year and is planning another round of a similar size in 2026.
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