Future of Medical Power Supplies: Combining GaN Efficiency with IEC 60601-1 Safety

Overview

• ■   The Key Trends Driving Next-Generation Medical Power Supplies
• ■   Why GaN Is Becoming the Core of Future Medical Power Supply Designs
• ■   Medical Safety Requirements: Understanding IEC 60601-1
• ■   The Challenge: High-Speed GaN vs IEC 60601-1 Safety Requirements
• ■   How to Achieve Both GaN Efficiency and Medical Safety
• ■   Application Scenarios for Next-Generation GaN Medical Power Supplies
• ■   EDAC POWER’s Roadmap for Future Medical Power Technologies
• ■   Preparing for the Next Generation of Medical Power — Smaller, Cooler, Safer

As global healthcare systems shift toward digitalization, home care, and mobility, the demands placed on medical equipment power supplies extend far beyond simple reliability. Next-generation power solutions must achieve a perfect equilibrium between extreme efficiency, compact size, and the highest safety standards.

Gallium Nitride (GaN), a new Wide Bandgap (WBG) semiconductor material, is becoming the core technology driving this transformation due to its superior performance. This article will explore how GaN not only meets the stringent requirements of the IEC 60601-1 medical safety standard but is also emerging as the mainstream trend in future medical power design.

The Key Trends Driving Next-Generation Medical Power Supplies

Modern medical devices impose unprecedented performance challenges on their power sources. These trends are the primary catalysts for GaN technology adoption in the medical sector:

1. High Efficiency (94%-96%) and Enhanced Reliability:

Higher conversion efficiency reduces energy consumption and minimizes heat buildup, significantly boosting power reliability and MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures), ensuring stability during long operational periods.

2. High Power Density and Miniaturization:

devices, size constraints are increasingly severe, demanding higher power density (W/in3), particularly for home healthcare settings.

3. Ultra-Low Standby Power Consumption:

Since medical equipment often operates in standby mode, reducing quiescent power is crucial for improving overall system energy efficiency and aligning with the Green Healthcare movement.

4. Heightened Reliability (MTBF Improvement):

Medical applications involve patient safety, making the requirements for power supply longevity and stability far more rigorous than those for industrial or consumer sectors.

5. Lightweight Demand for Mobile and Wireless Devices:

Devices such as mobile ultrasound systems or patient monitors require highly integrated, lightweight external or embedded power designs.

6. Advanced Power for Digitalization and High-Data Requirements:

To support high-compute devices, power supplies must provide excellent transient response, ensuring system voltage stability during sudden load spikes when reading or processing data.

👉 From Medical Power to USB-C PD: Discover the Versatility of GaN Technology

Why GaN Is Becoming the Core of Future Medical Power Supply Designs

GaN possesses distinct advantages that overcome the limitations of traditional Silicon (Si) materials, perfectly matching the medical sector's needs for compactness, low heat, and energy efficiency:

1. High-Frequency Operation Enables Space Reclamation:

The ultra-fast switching speed of GaN components allows power supplies to operate at high frequencies, resulting in lighter and smaller power modules. This frees up valuable internal space within medical devices for batteries, sensors, or other diagnostic modules.

2. High-Density Modules for Wearable and Home Care:

The compact GaN modules can be seamlessly integrated into space-constrained equipment, making them ideal for home care, wearable health monitoring, and enhancing patient comfort.

3. Compliance with Green Healthcare Trends:

GaN's low on-resistance and rapid switching characteristics push system efficiency beyond 94%, perfectly meeting the global medical sector's demands for energy saving and carbon reduction.

4. Reduced Thermal Stress, Improved System Stability:

Minimizing heat generation protects the device's sensitive electronic components and sensors from thermal drift, thereby increasing diagnostic accuracy and long-term device reliability.

Medical Safety Requirements: Understanding IEC 60601-1

In the medical field, performance must never be achieved at the expense of safety. IEC 60601-1 is the globally recognized basic safety standard for medical electrical equipment, imposing extremely strict requirements on power supplies:

1. Electrical Isolation (MOPP, MOOP):

Classification into Means of Operator Protection (MOOP) and Means of Patient Protection (MOPP). MOPP mandates higher clearances, creepage distances, and dielectric strength to ensure absolute isolation between the patient and the power source.

2. Leakage Current Limits:

This is the core regulation for patient safety, strictly limiting the minute currents that flow to the patient or ground under normal and single fault conditions.

3. Clearance and Creepage Distance Requirements:

Strict definitions for the minimum isolation distances over the insulator surface (Creepage) and through the air (Clearance) to prevent arcing or leakage at high voltages. The MOPP level typically requires double the safety distances of industrial-grade equipment.

4. EMC / EMI Standards:

Compliance with IEC 60601-1-2 is required to ensure that the electromagnetic interference (EMI) generated during power operation does not affect other medical instruments, while also possessing sufficient electromagnetic immunity (EMC).

5. Patient Protection Requirements:

IEC 60601-1 demands that power supply design must consider all risks under single fault conditions, ensuring that patient protection measures are maintained even if a component fails.

The Challenge: High-Speed GaN vs IEC 60601-1 Safety Requirement

The advantages of ultra-high frequency and high-speed switching offered by GaN also present hurdles in achieving medical-grade safety compliance that engineers must overcome:

1. High-Speed Switching Leads to EMI Challenges:

The extremely fast switching speed of GaN components (high dV/dt and dI/dt) easily generates intense radiated and conducted electromagnetic noise, making compliance with the IEC 60601-1-2 standard more challenging.

2. Isolation and Creepage Distance Constraints on Miniaturization:

Although GaN allows for smaller transformers, their insulation structure and winding distances must strictly adhere to the electrical clearance and creepage distance required by MOPP, limiting the extent of size reduction.

3. Demand for More Precise Thermal Management:

After extreme miniaturization, the thermal density rises sharply, imposing extremely high requirements on the power module's localized hotspots and heat dissipation paths.

4. Surge, ESD, and Leakage Current Tests (Surge / ESD / Leakage):

High-speed circuits are more sensitive to electrostatic discharge (ESD) and surges (Surge). Precise control over parasitic capacitance is also necessary to ensure the extremely low patient leakage current meets specifications.

How to Achieve Both GaN Efficiency and Medical Safety

Overcoming these challenges requires advanced power design expertise and precise engineering techniques:

1. Multi-Layer Isolation Architecture:

Utilizing specialized transformer designs combined with Reinforced Isolation or multi-stage isolation architectures to ensure the isolation level meets the high safety standard of MOPP.

2. Low EMI Topologies:

Employing advanced Soft-Switching topologies, such as the LLC resonant converter or Active Clamp Flyback, to reduce the EMI generated by GaN's high-speed switching at the source.

3. PCB Layout High-Speed Design Rules:

Meticulously designing the circuit board layout, strictly controlling high-frequency loop areas, and using multi-layer boards to provide effective ground plane isolation and shielding to suppress noise.

4. Active Clamp / Soft-Switching Technologies:

These techniques further reduce switching losses, lower component thermal stress, and optimize EMI performance.

5. Medical-Grade Thermal Management and Housing Design:

Using high-thermal-conductivity potting materials and optimizing heat dissipation paths to ensure the power supply operates reliably and safely even at maximum ambient temperatures.

6. Compliance with 60601-1-2 (EMC):

Strictly conducting EMC prediction and testing, from component selection to system integration, to ensure compliance with the latest 4th edition EMC standard.

Application Scenarios for Next-Generation GaN Medical Power Supplies

GaN technology is bringing revolutionary breakthroughs in performance and portability to the following critical medical equipment:

◉ Smart Patient Monitoring Systems:

GaN power supplies can provide stable, low-noise power to monitors and support their mobile or bedside applications in a smaller form factor, ensuring the reliability of long-term data acquisition.

◉ Portable & Wearable Healthcare Devices:

Examples include mobile vital signs monitors and portable ECG devices. The ultra-miniaturization achieved by GaN is key to the lightweight design and long battery life of these devices.

◉ Home-use Medical Electronics:

Such as oximeters, blood pressure monitors (BP monitor), and home respirators. GaN's low standby power consumption and high safety significantly improve the user experience and reliability for home use.

◉ Imaging & Diagnostic Equipment:

Including mid-sized ultrasound systems or endoscopy systems. GaN can deliver the required high power within an extremely small volume, reducing equipment footprint and supporting mobile applications.

EDAC POWER’s Roadmap for Future Medical Power Technologies

EDAC POWER views GaN technology as the core driver of innovation in medical power. We are committed to providing customers with solutions that meet stringent safety and performance requirements:

◉ High-Efficiency GaN-Series Medical Power Supplies:

Launching a full range of high-efficiency products based on GaN technology, with industry-leading power density.

◉ IEC 60601-1 / 60601-1-2 Compliance:

All medical power products strictly adhere to the IEC 60601-1 (latest edition) and IEC 60601-1-2 EMC standards, ensuring the highest level of patient and operator safety.

◉ Highly Integrated, Miniaturized GaN Modules:

Specifically designed for portable, wearable, and bedside medical equipment where space is constrained and high power density is required.

◉ Customization Support:

Leveraging our deep experience in GaN design and IEC 60601-1 certification, we offer flexible customization services to meet specific electrical specifications and safety isolation requirements.

◉ Accelerating Product Launch and Certification:

Providing pre-certified GaN platforms that have passed multi-national IEC 60601-1 certification, significantly shortening customer development and time-to-market while mitigating compliance risks.

Preparing for the Next Generation of Medical Power — Smaller, Cooler, Safer

High efficiency and high safety are the twin pillars of medical power. The maturity of GaN technology means that these two aspects are no longer mutually exclusive. It not only delivers extreme power density and efficiency but also challenges engineers to push the limits of EMI, isolation, and thermal management.GaN is formally becoming the mainstream for new medical power supplies.

To ensure their products remain competitive in this technological upgrade, medical device manufacturers should plan ahead and select power partners with proven GaN expertise and IEC 60601-1 certification experience. EDAC POWER will continue to invest deeply in this technology, ensuring your medical equipment achieves peak performance while providing the most reliable safety assurance. Do not hesitate to contact us for further information!