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Gallium nitride (GaN) devices are gaining rapid adoption in electric vehicle (EV) power electronics because of their high switching speed, efficiency, and passive size reduction. The remaining gaps concern reliability across real drive cycles, integration with vehicle-level thermal subsystems, and scalability to high-voltage platforms. This review addresses these gaps by synthesizing experimental reports and automotive case studies from 2019 to 2025. We examine reliability through junction stress and derating maps derived from urban/highway duty profiles and temperature extremes, and we link device hot-spots to thermal pathways (TIMs, spreaders, liquid/air cooling) within the EV thermal budget. We then compare GaN-based onboard chargers (OBCs), DC–DC stages (LLC/CLLC/DAB), traction inverters, and EMI strategies against Si/SiC baselines. Results indicate OBC efficiencies of 96–98% at 100–500 kHz, with 30–60% passive reduction; inverter efficiencies > 98% on 400 V platforms; and strong potential for GaN paired with Vienna or T-type rectifiers in 800 V charging, while >900 V traction remains largely SiC-led. We conclude with a topology-selection framework that balances switching and conduction losses, gate-driver complexity, and EMI, plus a roadmap toward EMI-compliant MHz operation and data-driven reliability evaluation.
Adeloye et al. (Mon,) studied this question.