Nexperia and Aurobay Weigh GaN and SiC for Hybrid Powertrains

Nexperia and Aurobay Technologies, a division of Renault Group and Geely joint venture Horse Powertrain, said they will explore a collaboration on gallium nitride and silicon carbide power semiconductors for electrified and hybrid vehicle platforms.

Two companies from opposite ends of the vehicle electrification chain have agreed to look at working together. Nexperia, the power semiconductor maker, and Aurobay Technologies, a division of Horse Powertrain, say they will explore a collaboration on gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) power devices aimed at electrified and hybrid vehicle platforms.

The framing matters as much as the technology. This is an exploration, not a supply contract with volumes and dates attached. But the pairing is instructive: Nexperia brings the semiconductor side, Aurobay brings the knowledge of how a complete powertrain behaves in a production car. The stated aim, according to Charged EVs, is to combine Nexperia's GaN and SiC work with Aurobay's powertrain systems expertise.

Why wide-bandgap chips keep pulling automakers in

Silicon carbide and gallium nitride are what engineers call wide-bandgap semiconductors. In plain terms, they switch electrical current faster and lose less energy as heat than the conventional silicon devices that have run automotive electronics for decades. Less waste heat means smaller cooling hardware; faster switching means smaller magnetics and capacitors. In a vehicle, that cascades into lighter, denser inverters, on-board chargers and DC-DC converters.

For a battery-electric car, the payoff is usually described in range: the same pack goes further because less energy is burned off in the power electronics. For a hybrid, the calculus is different and arguably tighter. Hybrids carry a smaller battery and a combustion engine at the same time, so every litre of under-bonnet volume and every kilogram is contested. Shrinking the inverter and charger is not a luxury; it is often what makes a given architecture fit a given car at all.

That is the logical reason a powertrain house would want a semiconductor partner early rather than buying finished modules later. Device choice, gate drive design, thermal path and control software are not independent decisions. Getting them right together is where the efficiency gains actually live, and it is exactly the work a joint exploration is set up to do.

Aurobay's position inside the Renault-Geely structure

Aurobay Technologies sits within Horse Powertrain, the joint venture between Renault Group and Geely. That parentage gives any technology developed under this arrangement an unusually broad potential audience. Horse was built to supply combustion, hybrid and range-extender powertrains to multiple carmakers rather than to serve a single brand, which means a device platform validated at Aurobay is not automatically confined to one nameplate or one region.

It also says something about where the industry's attention has moved. The pure battery-electric transition has not proceeded on the linear path many forecasters drew at the start of the decade, and hybrid and plug-in hybrid architectures have absorbed a large share of the electrification effort in the meantime. A partnership that explicitly names "electrified and hybrid" platforms rather than EVs alone is calibrated to that reality.

For component suppliers, hybrids are not a consolation prize. A plug-in hybrid still needs an inverter, an on-board charger, a DC-DC converter and a traction motor controller. The silicon content per vehicle is lower than a large battery-electric car but far higher than a conventional combustion vehicle, and hybrid volumes across the global fleet are substantial.

The supply-chain question sitting behind the announcement

Nexperia's situation is worth stating plainly, because it colours how carmakers assess any new semiconductor relationship. The company is a European-headquartered chipmaker under Chinese ownership, and that structure has drawn sustained regulatory and political attention in recent years as governments on both sides of the Atlantic have grown more assertive about who controls strategically sensitive manufacturing. Automotive buyers have learned, expensively, what a semiconductor supply interruption does to an assembly line.

That backdrop cuts in two directions. It creates scrutiny Nexperia's rivals in Europe, Japan and the United States do not face in the same form. It also gives the company a reason to lock in deep engineering relationships with European-linked powertrain groups, because a supplier embedded in a customer's architecture is much harder to displace than one selling parts off a catalogue. An exploration agreement with a Renault-Geely-owned powertrain division is precisely that kind of embedding exercise.

The competitive field for automotive wide-bandgap devices is crowded and well capitalised, with established SiC and GaN programmes at several large device makers and at foundries serving them. Winning designed-in positions at powertrain integrators, rather than competing purely on price per die, is the standard route to durable share.

What would turn an exploration into a business

Investors and suppliers watching this should track a short list of concrete milestones. The first is whether the exploration converts into a named development programme with a target vehicle architecture attached. Automotive qualification is long and unforgiving; a device that has not cleared reliability testing at temperature and across thousands of switching cycles is not a product.

The second is whether GaN gets a traction-level role or stays in the auxiliary systems. Silicon carbide has largely won the high-voltage traction inverter argument in production cars. Gallium nitride has been more common in on-board chargers and DC-DC conversion, where voltages are lower and switching frequencies higher. A programme that pushes GaN further up the powertrain would be a genuine technical statement rather than a routine sourcing move.

The third is capacity and sourcing: where the wafers come from, whether substrates are secured under long-term agreement, and whether the arrangement is exclusive in any segment. None of that is disclosed at this stage.

Reading it against a strong Friday tape

The announcement landed on a broadly positive session for U.S. equities. The S&P 500 tracker SPY closed at $764.29, up 0.85% on the day from a prior close of $757.83, with a day range of $763.60 to $766.38. The Nasdaq 100 proxy QQQ finished at $714.88, up 0.87% from $708.69, and the Dow tracker DIA closed at $525.79, up 0.97% from $520.75. Those are the last traded prices as of 20:00 GMT on Friday, 11 September 2026, with the market closed.

Neither Nexperia nor Aurobay trades directly on those benchmarks, so the read-across is indirect. It runs instead through the listed semiconductor and automotive supplier complex, where the market has spent much of this cycle trying to separate companies with committed automotive design wins from those with announced intentions. An exploration agreement belongs firmly in the second category until it produces a programme.

Still, the direction of travel is unambiguous. Power electronics is now one of the few areas where a powertrain group can meaningfully differentiate on efficiency, and the companies that control the device technology are being pulled closer to the vehicle architects who need it. Whether this particular pairing gets past the exploration stage is the open question.

Key facts

• Parties: Nexperia and Aurobay Technologies
• Ownership chain: Aurobay is a division of Horse Powertrain, a Renault Group-Geely joint venture
• Technologies in scope: Gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors
• Market backdrop (last close): SPY $764.29, +0.85%; QQQ $714.88, +0.87% — as of 20:00 GMT, 11 Sep 2026

Frequently asked questions

What have Nexperia and Aurobay actually agreed to?

They have agreed to explore a collaboration on gallium nitride and silicon carbide power semiconductors for electrified and hybrid vehicle platforms. The stated aim is to combine Nexperia's GaN and SiC device work with Aurobay's powertrain systems expertise. It is an exploratory arrangement rather than a disclosed supply contract with volumes, pricing or delivery dates attached.

Who owns Aurobay Technologies?

Aurobay Technologies is a division of Horse Powertrain, which is a joint venture between Renault Group and Geely. That structure means technology developed at Aurobay has a potentially wide route to market, since Horse was set up to supply powertrains across multiple vehicle programmes rather than serve a single brand exclusively.

What is the difference between SiC and GaN in a vehicle?

Both are wide-bandgap semiconductors that switch faster and waste less energy as heat than conventional silicon. In production cars, silicon carbide has dominated high-voltage traction inverters, while gallium nitride has been more common in on-board chargers and DC-DC converters, where voltages are lower and switching frequencies higher.

Why does this matter for hybrids specifically?

A hybrid carries both a combustion engine and an electric drive, so under-bonnet space and weight are heavily contested. Wide-bandgap devices allow smaller cooling hardware and smaller magnetics, shrinking the inverter and charger. That packaging gain can be what makes a given electrified architecture physically fit into a given vehicle.

What is the supply-chain issue around Nexperia?

Nexperia is a European-headquartered chipmaker under Chinese ownership, a structure that has attracted regulatory and political scrutiny as governments have grown more assertive about control of strategically sensitive manufacturing. Automotive buyers, having been burned by past semiconductor shortages, weigh that context when assessing new long-term chip relationships.

What should be watched next?

Three things: whether the exploration converts into a named development programme tied to a specific vehicle architecture; whether gallium nitride is pushed into a traction-level role rather than staying in auxiliary systems; and what is disclosed about wafer capacity, substrate sourcing and any exclusivity. None of those details have been made public.

Sources

• Nexperia and Aurobay to explore GaN and SiC power devices for electrified powertrains — Charged EVs

Photo: Gustavo Fring · Pexels Licence — source