In an interview, Brian King, Senior Member of Technical Staff, Texas Instruments, speaks with Electronics Buzz about the future of power electronics and semiconductor innovation. He discusses advancements in GaN technology, isolated power modules, digital power architectures, renewable energy systems, and EV charging, highlighting how Texas Instruments is enabling higher efficiency, power density, reliability, and scalable energy solutions for next-generation industrial and mobility applications.
Read the full interview here:
EB: Texas Instruments has been at the forefront of power management innovation. How is TI helping customers address the growing demand for higher efficiency, power density, and reliability across modern power design applications?
Brian: TI is focused on helping engineers overcome some of the most pressing power design challenges today, including increasing power density, extending battery life, reducing electromagnetic interference (EMI), improving power and signal integrity, and enhancing system safety. We continue to push the boundaries of power through advancements in process technology, packaging, and circuit design, enabling customers to build more efficient, compact, and reliable systems.
A recent example is our new isolated power modules featuring proprietary IsoShield™ technology, a multichip packaging innovation that integrates a high-performance planar transformer and isolated power stage into a single package. This technology delivers up to three times higher power density compared to discrete solutions while reducing solution size by up to 70%, helping engineers design more compact, efficient and reliable systems for applications ranging from data centers to electric vehicles. It also supports improved safety and functional isolation while accelerating time-to-market through higher integration.
With one of the industry’s broadest power management portfolios, spanning power conversion, regulation, protection, isolation, battery management and more, we provide the building blocks engineers need to optimize performance across a wide range of applications. Ultimately, our mission is to empower engineers to innovate faster and create technologies that make electronics more efficient, reliable, and capable.
EB: Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology is gaining significant traction across the power electronics industry. What factors are driving its adoption, and how is TI’s expanding GaN portfolio enabling next-generation consumer and industrial power systems?
Brian: Many designers have begun adopting GaN technology because it enables faster switching speeds, higher efficiency and greater power density compared to traditional silicon. TI’s GaN devices operate at switching frequencies above 500kHz, resulting in up to 60% smaller magnetics. This helps reduce system size, increase power density and lower overall system cost in applications such as data center servers, solar and energy storage systems, consumer power adapter and supply units, home appliances and electric vehicles.
Our GaN portfolio is continuously expanding and spans integrated power stages, AC/DC converters, buck and boost converters, and motor drivers. TI’s GaN motor drivers, for example, deliver greater than 99% inverter efficiency and can reduce PCB size by over 50%, while our AC/DC solutions integrate features like high-voltage startup and protection to simplify design and cut bill-of-materials costs.
For instance, deploying GaN in two-wheeler chargers can shrink their size by one-third compared to existing technology and significantly reduce power consumption and heat generation due to lower leakage.
EB: India is witnessing rapid growth in electric mobility, particularly in the two-wheeler segment. How do you see GaN-based power solutions contributing to improved performance, charging efficiency, and overall system optimization in EV applications?
Brian: In India, we’re seeing an increase in demand for power solutions that are more efficient, compact and reliable to support the region’s growing electric mobility ecosystem. GaN technology can help address these performance requirements by enabling higher power density, faster switching speeds, and lower power losses, allowing engineers to design smaller and more efficient power systems.
At TI, we continue to advance power technologies that help our customers around the world overcome key design challenges such as increasing power density, improving efficiency, and optimizing overall system performance. As EV adoption accelerates, innovations like GaN will play an important role in enabling faster, smaller charging and power architectures that deliver more capable and energy-efficient mobility solutions.
EB: As renewable energy integration accelerates, power conversion systems and solar-grid infrastructure are becoming increasingly critical. What role can advanced semiconductor technologies play in improving the efficiency and scalability of these energy ecosystems?
Brian: Improving energy system efficiency and scalability ultimately comes down to enabling long-term reliability, and that’s where advanced semiconductor technologies are making a significant impact.
Through innovations in battery management and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), operators can prevent system malfunctions before they happen. TI’s BQ79826Z-Q1 battery monitor with integrated EIS engine, for example, detects potential failures in ESS applications from within battery cells. This real-time visibility and predictive intelligence enables operators to deploy systems at scale with the confidence that stored energy will be available when it’s needed. Solid-state transformers (SSTs) are driving similar gains at the grid level. By using power electronics to manage and direct bidirectional energy flow in real time, SSTs give operators more control over power delivery across AC and DC infrastructures, reducing the risk of disruptions.
As energy systems become more connected and distributed, semiconductors will continue to play a key role in helping customers build scalable, efficient and reliable renewable energy ecosystems.
EB: Digital power architectures and high-energy battery charging systems are evolving rapidly. Could you share how innovations such as Dual Active Bridge (DAB) architectures are transforming power conversion and energy management applications?
Brian: As power systems evolve toward higher energy levels and bidirectional operation, architectures such as Dual Active Bridge (DAB) are becoming increasingly important. DAB enables efficient bidirectional power flow, allowing fast and uninterrupted transitions between forward and reverse power delivery. This makes it well-suited for applications such as EV fast charging, energy storage systems, and renewable energy infrastructure.
Its modular and symmetrical structure allows power conversion modules to be stacked, enabling higher power throughput to support applications such as DC fast charging stations. In addition, DAB supports soft-switching operation, which helps improve efficiency while reducing switching losses. These characteristics make DAB topologies particularly valuable in applications where power density, efficiency, reliability and galvanic isolation are critical.
TI’s GaN-based implementations further advance these capabilities by enabling higher switching frequencies than silicon-based designs, directly reducing the size of transformers, inductors and capacitors to meet the weight and form factor requirements of modern on-board charger and energy storage system designs. As electrification accelerates, DAB-based power conversion architectures will play a key role in enabling more efficient and scalable energy management systems.
EB: Looking ahead, what are the key technology trends and opportunities that you believe will shape India’s power electronics landscape over the next five years, particularly in sectors such as industrial automation, renewable energy, and e-mobility?
Brian: With global renewable electricity generation forecast to reach over 17,000 terawatt-hours by 2030 – a nearly 90% increase from 2023 – India’s power electronics landscape is evolving rapidly. This is driven by several trends: the growing adoption of industrial automation, expansion of renewable energy infrastructure, growth of e-mobility, increasing deployment of energy storage systems, and the industry’s focus on achieving higher power density and energy efficiency. Advancements in GaN-based power semiconductors are also enabling more compact solar inverters and more efficient power conversion across industrial, automotive, and renewable energy applications.
At TI, we’re focused on making electronics more affordable through analog and embedded processing semiconductors. That commitment extends to supporting the broader adoption of renewable energy systems, from the solar panels that power a home to the EV charger on the wall. We contribute through products that provide the sensing, connectivity, and intelligence that solar generation, energy storage, e-mobility, and industrial automation applications rely on.
