Infineon pitches humanoid-hand chips: 66 mm GaN board drives 1.2 kW joints

Infineon Technologies is going after the humanoid robot hand with microcontrollers, power semiconductors and tactile sensors carried over from its industrial, automotive and smartphone businesses, according to a report by Korean trade outlet The Elec (디일렉) on Oct 19 of a talk by Infineon's Sarah Wu at a SEDEX 2026 side event in Seoul on Oct 16; Infineon has not issued a release on the talk.

The company said its parts can serve centralised, hybrid and fully distributed hand-control layouts, with the choice depending on the hand's degrees of freedom, and that fingertips can combine 3D magnetic and pressure sensors to measure contact pressure while capacitive sensors track finger position and fingertip force.

It also showed a demo board of about 66 mm that pairs a microcontroller with gallium nitride power chips and power and position sensors to drive motors of up to 1.2 kW, arguing GaN lets joint drive circuits shrink.

MEKAWIRE reported on Oct 16 that Korean reducer maker Bonsystems has held talks with Infineon on a robot actuator driver, and earlier on Oct 19 it reported TDK InvenSense's pitch of low-cost magnetic sensors for humanoid finger joints.