Renesas launches first low-voltage GaN FETs aimed at humanoid robots and AI data centers
The 100V E-mode GaN transistor family promises up to 70% lower switching losses than silicon designs — a quiet but consequential upgrade for robot power electronics.
Renesas Electronics has expanded its gallium-nitride portfolio into low-voltage territory with its first family of 100V enhancement-mode GaN discrete power transistors, the company announced on October 6. The four devices — the RTP100E005G1FL, RTP100E2P6G1FL, RTP100E1P8G1FL-DSC and RTP100E1P2G1FL-DSC — are explicitly positioned for AI data centers, humanoid robotics, factory automation and industrial motor drives, alongside power tools and solar microinverters.
The headline numbers, all from Renesas' own announcement: up to 35% lower hard-switching and 63% lower soft-switching figure-of-merit than comparable GaN devices, 1–3% higher efficiency than silicon-based designs, 40–70% lower switching losses, and up to double the power density at the system level. The parts ship in MOSFET-compatible packages with on-resistance from 5 mΩ down to 1.2 mΩ, so designers can migrate existing silicon layouts without major PCB rework. They are available now in FCLGA and dual-side-cooled FCLGA-DSC packages, with evaluation boards.
Why this matters for robots: a humanoid is a walking power-conversion problem — dozens of joints drawing bursty current, batteries and compute competing for the same thermal budget. Moving motor-drive and DC-DC stages from silicon MOSFETs to low-voltage GaN shrinks magnetics, cuts cooling requirements and frees board space, which is exactly the trade-off constraining humanoid runtimes and payload today. “Customers adopting next-generation GaN technology for AI servers, robotics, industrial motor drives and renewable energy systems are looking for ways to deliver more efficient power conversion from increasingly compact systems,” said Akhil Nair, Renesas' senior director for low-voltage GaN. Two caveats: every performance figure here is the vendor's own, and “humanoid robotics” in a press release's application list is a market signal, not a design win — no robot maker has been named as a customer.