At APEC, Renesas Intros 500 W GaN Platform and GaN Bidirectional Switch

At APEC 2026, Renesas Electronics announced two significant GaN developments that exemplify how the technology is moving beyond discrete replacement and toward application-specific solutions. The EEPower team was at the conference examining the broad range of Renesas demonstrations and speaking with their technical team. 

The company unveiled a 500 W high-efficiency, high-density GaN platform for power adapters and industrial charging applications, alongside the industry's first bidirectional 650V GaN switch designed to simplify power inversion in solar, data center, and EV charging systems. 

The 650 V-class GaN switch. Image used courtesy of Renesas

The GaN HWLLC Platform

The centerpiece of Renesas' innovations is a hybrid high-side and low-side LLC (HWLLC) converter platform targeting 500W+ applications across IoT, industrial, and infrastructure sectors. The platform combines four integrated circuits: the RRW11011 interleaved PFC and HWLLC combo controller, the RRW30120 USB Power Delivery 3.2 EPR controller, the RRW40120 600V half-bridge GaN driver, and the RRW43110 synchronous rectifier controller.

Two key things distinguish this platform. First, HWLLC topology eliminates the secondary transformer winding required in traditional LLC topologies, reducing component count and complexity.

Second, the platform achieves 96.5% peak efficiency in 240 W USB PD EPR adapter designs while delivering 3 W/cc power density, which Renesas claims is the highest in the industry.

Both are important metrics. Efficiency reduces thermal load and extends battery runtime in end devices, while density enables charging solutions for space-constrained products such as power tools, e-bikes, and portable displays.

The platform also notably integrates Zero-Standby Power technology, a feature increasingly required by energy regulations in North America and Europe. Meanwhile, USB PD EPR support extends charging capability up to 240W, positioning adapters built on this platform to serve next-gen laptops and industrial equipment.

Renesas emphasized that the platform targets power tools, e-bikes, TVs, monitors, industrial lighting, and medical devices, a span of disparate applications that reflects GaN's growing utility beyond smartphones and small consumer electronics.

The EBC10293 evaluation board. Image used courtesy of Renesas

Renesas has released the EBC10293 evaluation board to accelerate design-in for manufacturers.

Bidirectional Switching

Renesas' second release addresses the different but equally bothersome pain point of bidirectional power flow. The company introduced the TP65B110HRU, described as the industry's first bidirectional switch using depletion-mode (d-mode) GaN. This single device blocks both positive and negative currents, achieving +/-650 V continuous and +/-800 V transient rating in a compact TOLT top-side cooled package.

At APEC 2026, EEPower explored multiple displays at the Renesas booth, including this bi-directional power system mockup.

The typical alternative, back-to-back MOSFETs, requires two discrete switches and the associated gate-drive circuitry. The Renesas solution consolidates this into a single device with 110 mΩ on-resistance at 25°C, a 3 V gate threshold, and ±20 V maximum gate voltage.

The switch maintains more than 100 V/ns dv/dt immunity, making it compatible with standard gate drivers without requiring negative gate bias supply rails.

The TP65B110HRU. Image used courtesy of Renesas

The architecture combines d-mode GaN with two low-voltage silicon MOSFETs, achieving an efficiency above 97.5% in solar microinverter designs while halving the component count versus traditional back-to-back FET approaches.

Applications here extend beyond solar to include energy recovery in AI data center power supplies, onboard chargers in electric vehicles, and grid-interactive home energy storage, all of which benefit from compact, efficient bidirectional switching. The RTDACHB0000RS-MS-1 evaluation kit is now available for design teams.

These two product releases ultimately reflect where the GaN market is heading. Rather than GaN as a one-to-one silicon replacement, suppliers are building application-specific platforms—HWLLC for high-density chargers, bidirectional switches for inverters—that unlock efficiency and density gains silicon cannot match.

For Renesas, all this aligns with accelerating demand for high-power USB PD adapters, renewable energy integration, and EV infrastructure, all areas where GaN adoption remains below potential.