To help us explore this exciting transition, I’m pleased to introduce our guest, Madison Ecklund, Systems Manager in the Automotive Body Electronics and Lighting Systems team at Texas Instruments. Madison brings deep expertise in automotive power management and system design, and is responsible for Zone Control Modules and Power Distribution Boxes. She holds an Electrical Engineering degree from Vanderbilt University. She has experience in EMI/EMC compliance, 48V low voltage architectures, and automotive ethernet in-vehicle network evolution.

Today’s episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Infineon.

Today, it’s a pleasure to have a special guest, Marijana Vukicevic, joining us to discuss the evolving role of microcontrollers (MCUs) in high-performance motor control and power conversion applications.

As industries shift from analog to digital power systems, MCUs are at the heart of enabling higher efficiency, faster switching, and real-time processing—critical for applications like robotics, industrial automation, and high-density power supplies for data centers. With switching frequencies increasing from 200 kHz to 600 kHz and beyond, the demand for ultra-fast, well-architected microcontrollers is greater than ever.

In this episode, we’ll explore how Infineon’s MCUs are addressing these challenges, particularly in robotics and AI-powered motor control. We’ll also dive into the role of GaN-based power systems, the increasing power demands of server racks, and what the future of MCU architecture looks like for next-generation embedded systems.

Our guest today is Antonello Monti, a distinguished expert in the field of energy, professor at RWTH Aachen University, group leader at Fraunhofer FIT and Technical Advisory Council chair at Linux Foundation Energy. Monti is at the forefront of the movement toward fully digitalized energy grids, a game-changing concept that promises increased flexibility, efficiency and sustainability.

Pietro Scalia, Senior Director, Automotive Traction Solutions Power Solutions Group (PSG), onsemi  (~00:04 until 00:29)

Alex Lidow, CEO, EPC (~00:29 until 00:38)

Guy Moxey, Senior Director Power Products, Wolfspeed (~00:39 until 00:50)

Dilder Chowdhury, Director Strategic Marketing, Nexperia (~00:50 until 00:57)

Andrea Bricconi, Chief Commercial Officer, Cambridge GaN Devices (~00:58 until 01:10)

Philip Zuk, Senior Vice President, Business Development & Marketing, Transphorm (~01:10 until 01: 17)

Stephen Oliver, VP Corporate Marketing & Investor Relations, Navitas (~01:17 until 01:28)

Timothé Delaforge, Associate Professor, Bern University of Applied Sciences and Denis Marcon, General Manager, Innoscience (~01:28 until 01:36)

Mike Engelhardt, Qspice Creator, Qorvo (~01:36 until 01: 01:45)

Daniel Scharfen, Vice President Green Power Analytics at the Green Industrial Power Division. (~01:45 until 02:03)

In this powerUP podcast, we discuss with Gregorio Cappuccino, Associate Professor of Electronics in the department of electronics, computer science and systems at University of Calabria – Italy, and Thomas Michael Hogg, author of "Profitable Growth Strategy - 7 proven best practices from German companies".

Energous is a global leader in the advancement of wireless charging technology and its WattUp technology supports both near field and at-a-distance charging. Energous develops RF-based wireless power transfer technologies and customizable reference designs, provides worldwide regulatory assistance, a reliable supply chain, quality assurance, and sales and technical support to customers around the world. The company received the world’s first FCC Part 18 certification for at-a-distance wireless charging and has been awarded more than 200 patents for its WattUp technology.

“The future of energies. It's cleaner. It's cheaper, and it's more flexible than it's ever been.”

Power electronics has undergone an interesting change towards new Wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductors (WBG). Significant impact factors for the growth of the WBG semiconductor market include the growing demand for improved energy efficiency and increased demand for long-life batteries.

In power electronics, gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) wide bandgap semiconductors are used as a solution to slow down Silicon in high temperature and high power segments.

GaN device manufacturers’ rapid progress in material and process technologies has resulted in significant improvements in both performance and cost of products for several applications.

In this podcast our focus is to go in deep toward GaN with Alex Lidow, CEO and co-founder of EPC, Efficient Power Conversion, and Dinesh Ramanathan CEO & co-founder (co- faunder) of NexGen Power Systems Inc.

Wide-bandgap semiconductor materials offer devices the ability to operate at high voltages, temperatures, and frequencies. As the demand for these electronic devices is proliferating, the demand for wide-bandgap semiconductors tends to increase steadily. GaN is a high bandgap material that allows devices to operate at higher temperatures and withstand higher voltages compared to silicon.

GaN transistors are significantly faster and smaller than silicon MOSFETs. The performance of GaN shows that efficiency and performance have improved significantly, leading to several new applications that were not possible with silicon technology.

Moreover, GaN’s higher dielectric breakdown allows building thinner and therefore, lower resistance devices. Lower characteristic R_DS(on) leads to smaller devices with lower capacitance. Vertical GaN devices are capable of switching at higher frequencies and operating at higher voltages.

Vertical GaNis capable of operating at high breakdown voltage which enables Vertical GaN to power the most demanding applications, like Data Center Server power supplies, Electric Vehicles, solar inverters, motors, and high-speed trains.