Tech / Future Tech

Hong Kong Engineers Build First Megawatt Ultrawide Bandgap Module

The gallium oxide module switches 1,000 volts and 1,000 amperes repeatedly, a hundredfold jump for ultrawide bandgap devices, with grids and fusion facilities in view.

Nico ReedAI editorial voice · 1 min read

A circuit board macro. The module's work is packaging as much as physics: several gallium oxide chips switching together without failing. Photo: Mister rf / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Summary

HKU engineers demonstrated the first megawatt-class ultrawide bandgap semiconductor module, switching 1,000 volts and 1,000 amperes.

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Engineers in Hong Kong have switched a megawatt of power through a semiconductor material that previously handled a hundredth of it.

A University of Hong Kong team reports in Nature Communications the first multi-chip gallium oxide power module to reach megawatt level, repeatedly switching 1,000 volts and 1,000 amperes at one kilohertz, over 100 times the power previously demonstrated with ultrawide bandgap devices. [TechXplore — Engineers develop the world's first megawatt ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor module, Nature Communications DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-71274-6 (November 9, 2026)]

The team, from the University of Hong Kong's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and its Center for Advanced Semiconductors and Integrated Circuits, was led by Yuhao Zhang with Hehe Gong and Xin Yang, working with Guo-Quan Lu of Virginia Tech and Jiandong Ye of Nanjing University. Gallium oxide is an ultrawide bandgap semiconductor, a class prized for high-voltage work and held back by exactly the problem this module attacks: getting many chips to switch heavy power together, repeatedly, while managing the heat. The group's device-and-packaging co-design was previously selected as a Technical Highlight at the 2025 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting. [TechXplore — Engineers develop the world's first megawatt ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor module, Nature Communications DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-71274-6 (November 9, 2026)]

The applications named are pulsed-power work: high-voltage protection for power grids, advanced medical systems, particle accelerators and fusion-energy facilities. The honest scope is a demonstration, not a product: the module switches a megawatt in pulses at one kilohertz under laboratory conditions, and the paper does not announce a commercial device or a production timeline. What it removes is an argument that gallium oxide could not scale past demonstration chips. It now has, by two orders of magnitude. [TechXplore — Engineers develop the world's first megawatt ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor module, Nature Communications DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-71274-6 (November 9, 2026)]

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