Yaskawa Electric deepens its ties to Transphorm

As part of the agreement, Yaskawa will make investments in Transphorm totaling USD 4 million, with the first tranche of USD 1 million to be provided by mid-December 2020. This agreement is an expansion of the next phase of cooperation initiated in 2017 with Yaskawa’s investment of USD 15 million in Transphorm. Yaskawa intends to use Transphorm’s GaN power device products for a variety of industrial power conversion applications commencing with servo motor and variable frequency drive applications. Power device development activity by Transphorm under this agreement will benefit Yaskawa by enhancing its next generation of products in the mentioned applications. “Transphorm greatly values its long-term relationship with Yaskawa as it has helped to advance the development of Transphorm’s GaN FET platforms, resulting in high performance power devices for industrial and motor control applications as well as other focused markets,” says Umesh Mishra, Co-founder and CTO, Transphorm, in a press release. “The device development under this contract will further enhance the specifications of Transphorm’s products, while maintaining our best-in-class quality and reliability. These enhanced product features will make our new GaN products appealing for servo drives for robotics and motion control as well as a broader range of industrial and white goods applications.”