EEC Podcast with Tamara Baksht: VisIC Technologies - Improving the performance of EVs using gallium nitride transistors

Our guest this time is Dr. Tamara Baksht, the CEO at VisIC Technologies. Tamara has been leading the company for more than 10 years. She studied physics at Tomsk State University in Russia and completed her PhD at Tel Aviv University. Tamara has a lot of experience with multi-disciplinary GaN projects, starting with research work, but also budgeting, transferring products to production and providing customer support. She also secured financing for her research projects from the Chief Science Office and BIRD Foundation. In August 2009, Tamara completed Phase I of a multi-million USD, multi-year GaN program, one year ahead of the initial schedule. In 2010 she founded VisIC Technologies to make it a technology licensor and a provider of high-voltage (650V and above), high-volume GaN devices to the rapidly growing power conversion market. Nowadays they offer a wide range of inverters and on-board chargers. Automotive business is the most obvious area of application for their products. However, high-voltage GaN technology benefits numerous markets beyond the automotive sector. We talked with Tamara about the developments in the automotive industry, about the past, present and future of semiconductor technologies, about innovative thinking, about the higher purpose of VisIC Technologies, business cooperations and leadership challenges.