NewsSite EditorSitehttps://xinspowertech.usa02.wondercdn.com/uploads/image/645b396a7f3df.jpgAs a new member of semiconductor materials, gallium nitride has three characteristics: high switching frequency, large band-gap width, and lower on-resistance. Switching frequency refers to the number of times per second that electronic components such as thyristors and thyristors inside the charging head can be fully switched on and disconnected. The high switching frequency can reduce the volume of the transformer and capacitor, which helps to reduce the volume and weight of the charging head.
What Is A Gallium Nitride Charger? How to Choose The Right Charger?
Views: 359Publish Time: 2023-11-29
Learn About Gallium Nitride
Semiconductor materials have gone through three stages of development. The first generation is the basic functional materials such as silicon and germanium; The second generation began to enter compound semiconductor materials composed of more than two elements (represented by gallium arsenide and indium phosphide, etc.); The third generation is wide band compound semiconductor materials such as gallium nitride and silicon carbide. Gallium nitride has a wide range of applications and is considered to be one of the most important semiconductor materials after silicon.
Compared with silicon based power devices, gallium nitride power devices have higher critical electric field strength, lower on-state resistance, faster switching frequency, and can achieve higher system efficiency and work at high temperatures.
Application of gallium nitride in charging field
-GaN Charger
As a new member of semiconductor materials, gallium nitride has three characteristics: high switching frequency, large band-gap width, and lower on-resistance. Switching frequency refers to the number of times per second that electronic components such as thyristors and thyristors inside the charging head can be fully switched on and disconnected. The high switching frequency can reduce the volume of the transformer and capacitor, which helps to reduce the volume and weight of the charging head.
It has gradually replaced the traditional high voltage silicon MOS tube in the fast charge. The use of gallium nitride instead of silicon MOS tube not only reduces the switching loss, improves the conversion efficiency of the charger, so that the charger does not need to design a large area of heat sink. Moreover, the switching frequency of the power device is greatly increased, the inductance of the transformer is reduced, the transformer size is reduced, and the volume of the charger is reduced.
For example, the current mainstream 65W PD charger grows like a brick before adding gallium nitride, which is very large and portable! The charger using gallium nitride can be made to be the same size as an ordinary mobile phone charging head.
In addition to smaller size and lower heat, gallium nitride chargers also have multiple outputs, power adaptive, device line separation design and other features, the use of scenarios than the product comes with the charger is much more extensive, many times only one charger is enough.
How to Choose
a GaN Charger
?
When choosing a gallium nitride charger, we mainly look at the power, interface type/number, supported fast charge protocol three points and the charging protocol supported by their own devices. In addition, pin folding, security protection functions also need attention.
Output Power:
The current type of gallium nitride charger is very rich, small to charge a mobile phone (within 30W), large to charge a notebook (even up to 240W), there are many choices.
We can choose according to their own needs, such as certain cell phones only supports 27W charging, buy a 30W support PD charging gallium nitride charger is enough; If it is to charge a thin book, the preferred 65W gallium nitride charger. Of course, it is also necessary to consider charging multiple devices at the same time, and even the needs of future equipment upgrades, it is also possible to buy a multi-port gallium nitride charger of 140W and above in one step.
USB Charger Interface Type and Quantity:
Today's gallium nitride chargers are wire separation design, interfaces generally include USB-A interface, Type-C interface two, which is currently the most mainstream two output interfaces. Some chargers have only Type-C interfaces, some only USB-A interfaces, and some multi-port chargers have both, such as the "2C1A" that we often say refers to having 2 Type-C interfaces and 1 USB-A interface
.
Fast Charge Protocol
Fast charge protocol, equivalent to the access card of the charger, if you do not know a certain protocol, even if you support higher power, you can not charge the device normally. Common fast charge protocols include PD3.0, QC4+, QC3.0, SCP, FCP, AFC, MTK, and so on, you need to see whether the charger supports the fast charge protocol of your device.
If the above protocols are supported, then the charger can be fully charged for mobile phones, notebooks, tablets, wearable devices, and switches.
Pin Foldable
The essence of the gallium nitride charger is its small size, so if it supports pin folding, it is like adding wings to the tiger. At the same time, pay attention to the pin design position, some charger pins may fall off from the wall plug.
For example:
Xinspower
1
4
0W
2C1A
gallium nitride charger also supports charging for three devices at the same time, notebook, tablet, mobile phone can be fast charged at the same time, two notebooks can also be fast charged at the same time; 90° foldable plug, reduced to card size, more convenient to carry.
GaN Charger
Protection Function
The charger that can be bought on the regular online shop is generally guaranteed. Common protection functions include short-circuit protection, temperature protection, output overcurrent protection, output overvoltage protection, input overvoltage protection, path impedance abnormal protection, charging and discharging protection, hardware detection protection and so on.
Can gallium nitride charger replace notebook power adapter?
It's totally replaceable. Gallium nitride power adapter or mobile phone charger and the original silicon electronic components are the same safety requirements, the over-voltage protection, over-current protection, over-power protection, anti-interference protection, undervoltage protection, static protection, short circuit protection, temperature protection are available.
Although it can be used instead, it is not random, so what situation may be bad for the computer? We should focus on whether the power is matched, because the computer battery is part of the computer, if the long-term use of full load when the power supply is lower than the full load demand power, it will affect the battery life.
Suppose your computer needs 100W of power, so when you plug in a charger with the same interface and protocol compatibility but less than 100W, the result is that the laptop will draw power from the battery to make up for the lack of power supply. For a long time, the battery has been in a state of charge and discharge, which will lead to battery capacity attenuation.