Industry news--Karmin Electronic (HK) Limited

Power Integrations launches reference design for solar powered racing cars, using high-efficiency gallium nitride chips
2025-08-25

PowiGaN achieves 95% high efficiency at both light and full loads, meeting critical operational and safety functional requirements

Power Integrations launches a reference design kit tailored specifically for solar powered racing cars. At the same time, 37 student teams are ready to participate in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, which will begin on August 24th and traverse the inland regions of Australia.

The kit model is RDK-85SLR and uses PI ™ A company's integrated PowiGaN ™ InnoSwitch chip based on gallium nitride technology ™ 3-AQ. Its design inspiration comes from the collaboration between the online support engineers of PI company PowerPros VNet and the aCentauri team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The latter's 85th "Silvretta" challenge car will use this design in this competition to maximize the efficiency of the auxiliary power supply.
Every year, thousands of engineering students from around the world participate in solar car competitions, and these innovators will drive a more sustainable future, "said Andy Smith, Director of Technology Promotion and Training at Power Integrations." We offer this reference kit to help young engineers utilize the latest and most efficient technologies like PowiGaN to create more optimized designs. ”

The RDK-85SLR kit includes all the components required to design a 46W power supply, which can provide up to 80W of output power in a short period of time, making it ideal for use as an auxiliary power supply for solar powered racing cars. It uses PI's InnoSwitch 3-AQ flyback power chip, equipped with high-efficiency PowiGaN switches, without the need for heat sinks, achieving a more compact, lightweight, and cost-effective design. The kit includes a power sample, four InnoSwitch 3-AQ chips, and an unwelded PCB board, along with detailed instructions for making power and magnetic transformers, schematics, PCB layout guidelines, component lists, and complete performance data. The PowerPros team at Power Integrations can provide real-time technical support.

We validated the reliability, performance, and efficiency of PowiGaN at the 2023 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, "said Aaron Griesser, Chief Electrical Engineer of the aCentauri team in 2023." We achieved 95% efficiency in both light and full loads across a wide input range of 5 W to 60 W. In addition, the technical review panel was surprised by our auxiliary power supply design that does not require a heat sink. ”

Power Integrations is honored to be a sponsor of the aCentauri team and will report on the progress of the race on Mr. Green's blog, PI, and the company's official social media platforms. Please follow # PowiGaNVan.

Supply and Resources

The reference design kit RDK-85SLR is priced at $50. The solar racing team can obtain this kit for free by registering online.

Prev：Renesas Electronics launches a new USB-C power solution with an innovative three-level topology, which improves performance while reducing system size Next：There is no next post! !