Navitas Semiconductor and Avnet Silica announce agreement for close collaboration to expand market for advanced GaN power ICs

TORRANCE, Calif. and BRUSSELS, Belgium, Nov. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Navitas Semiconductor (Nasdaq: NVTS), an industry leader in gallium nitride (GaN) power ICs, and Avnet Silica, an Avnet company (NASDAQ: AVT), announced close cooperation between the two companies to grow the market in Europe for Navitas’ advanced performance and highly power efficient GaNFast™ power ICs with GaNSense technology.

The two companies will work closely together to deliver their combined complementary knowhow to bring a high level of support and expertise to customers across the EMEA region.

GaN is a next-generation semiconductor technology that is growing in importance because of its ability to offer significantly improved performance over conventional silicon semiconductors, while also reducing the energy and physical space needed to deliver that performance. It runs up to 20 times faster than silicon and can also enable up to three times more power handling or three times faster charging capability, as well as its size advantages, leading to potentially 20% lower system cost for designers, engineers and power system architects.

Navitas’ leading-edge GaNFast power ICs with GaNSense™ technology integrate power, drive, and control capability, as well as autonomous protection and loss-less current sensing, to deliver the industry’s highest energy efficiency, smallest footprints, and the fastest power-conversion performance. The company’s latest family of GaNSense half-bridge ICs offers a revolutionary, fully integrated, single component solution that enables AC-DC power supplies to achieve MHz switching frequencies in a broad range of soft-switching applications.

“Navitas’ unique GaN technology and its world-renowned monolithically integrated gate driver and feature set will significantly expand our ‘SILICA’ wide-band-gap semiconductor portfolio,” said Gilles Beltran, President Avnet Silica. “Navitas has a depth of expertise in power semiconductors that is unrivalled across the industry for this kind of advanced technology. We envisage this cooperation will bring huge benefits for customers operating at the cutting edge of power system architectures in a wide selection of applications.”

“We chose to work with Avnet Silica as one of the premier experts in semiconductor distribution in Europe,” said David Carroll, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Navitas. “The combination of our highly differentiated solutions together with Avnet Silica’s expertise in technology markets will further support designers and engineers to meet ever more stringent efficiency and size requirements and regulations. With our highly experienced technical team and our European applications lab, together, we can support customers with the best possible solutions and fastest time-to-market.”

About Avnet Silica
Avnet Silica is the European semiconductor specialist division of Avnet, one of the leading global technology distributors, and acts as the smart connection between customers and suppliers. The distributor simplifies complexity by providing creative solutions, technology and logistics support. Avnet Silica is a partner of leading semiconductor manufacturers and innovative solution providers over many years. With a team of more than 200 application engineers and technical specialists, Avnet Silica supports projects all the way from the idea to the concept to production. Avnet Silica is a regional business unit of Avnet, (NASDAQ: AVT) with European headquarters in Belgium (Avnet Europe BV). For more information, visit www.avnet-silica.com

About Avnet
As a leading global technology distributor and solutions provider, Avnet has served customers’ evolving needs for an entire century. We support customers at each stage of a product’s lifecycle, from idea to design and from prototype to production. Our unique position at the center of the technology value chain enables us to accelerate the design and supply stages of product development so customers can realize revenue faster. Decade after decade, Avnet helps its customers and suppliers around the world realize the transformative possibilities of technology. Learn more about Avnet at www.avnet.com. 

About Navitas
Navitas Semiconductor (Nasdaq: NVTS), founded in 2014, is the only pure-play, next-generation power-semiconductor company. GaNFast™ power ICs integrate gallium nitride (GaN) power and drive, with control, sensing and protection to enable faster charging, higher power density, and greater energy savings. Complementary GeneSiC™ power devices are optimized high-power, high-voltage and high-reliability silicon carbide (SiC) solutions. Focus markets include mobile, consumer, data center, EV, solar, wind, smart grid, and industrial. Over 185 Navitas patents are issued or pending. Over 65 million GaN units have been shipped to customers including Samsung, Dell, Lenovo and Xiaomi, with zero reported GaN field failures. Navitas introduced the industry’s first and only 20-year warranty. Navitas is the world’s first semiconductor company to be CarbonNeutral®-certified.

Navitas Semiconductor, GaNFast, GeneSiC and the Navitas logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Navitas Semiconductor Limited. Avnet disclaims any proprietary interest in marks other than its own. All other brands, product names and marks are or may be trademarks or registered trademarks used to identify products or services of their respective owners.

Media Contacts
Anja Woithe
Senior PR Manager Avnet EMEA
Anja.woithe@avnet.eu
+49 (0) 8121 774 459

Stephen Oliver,
VP Corporate Marketing & Investor Relations Navitas Semiconductor
ir@navitassemi.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ef309e0f-93e3-4d3b-96dd-f9096320f1a2