World’s first 8.5kW AI datacentre power supply
Navitas Semiconductor has developed what it says is the world’s first 8.5 kW power supply unit (PSU) for datacentre applications.
The design used both gallium arsenide (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) transistors in a three phase LLC topology to achieve 98% efficiency to power the coming generation of AI and hyperscale chips.
The 54V output PSU complies with Open Compute Project (OCP) and Open Rack v3 (ORv3) specifications and uses 650V GaNSafe and 650V Gen-3 Fast SiC MOSFETs configured in 3-phase interleaved PFC and LLC topologies, to ensure the highest efficiency and performance, with lowest component count.
Navitas combines GaN and SiC for data centre AI power
Infineon showed a 12kW design using GaN and SiC earlier this year, highlighting the design trend.
The PSU’s shift to a 3-phase topology for both the PFC and LLC (vs. 2-phase topologies used in current 8kW PSUs) enables the industry’s lowest ripple current and EMI. Furthermore, the PSU reduces the number of GaN and SiC devices by 25% compared with the nearest competing system, which reduces the overall cost and provides a density of 84.6 W/in3.
This follows a 4.5kW power supply design with both GaN and SiC devices launched by Navitas earlier in the year.
The PSU has an input voltage range of 180 to 264 Vac, a standby output voltage of 12 V, and an operating temperature range of -5oC to 45oC. Its hold-up time at 8.5 kW is 10 ms, with 20 ms possible through an extender.
The 3-Phase LLC topology is enabled by high-power GaNSafe, which is specifically created for high power applications such as AI data centres and industrial markets. This integrates control, drive, sensing, and critical protection features for short-circuit protection with a 350ns max latency, 2kV ESD protection on all pins, elimination of negative gate drive, and programmable slew rate control. All these features are controlled with 4-pins, allowing the package to be treated like a discrete GaN FET, requiring no VCC pin.
The GsNsafe devices are suitable for applications from 1 kW to 22 kW, and the 650 V GaNSafe in TOLL and TOLT packages are available with a maximum RDS(on) from 25 to 98 mΩ.
The 3-Phase interleaved continuous current mode (CCM) TP-PFC power factor correction front end is powered by Gen-3 Fast SiC MOSFETs with a trench-assisted planar technology.
“This complete wide bandgap solution of GaN and SiC enables the continuation of Navitas’ AI power roadmap which enables this 8.5kW and plans to drive to 12kW & higher in the near-term”, said Gene Sheridan, CEO and co-founder of Navitas. “As many as 95% of the world’s data centres cannot support the power demands of servers running NVIDIA’s latest Blackwell GPUs, highlighting a readiness gap in the ecosystem. This power supply design directly addresses these challenges for AI and hyperscale data centres.”
The 8.5kW power supply design will be on display for the first time at Electronica 2024 (Hall C 3, booth 129)
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