# Navitas Sues Renesas Over GaN Patents in an Escalating Power Chip War > Source: > Published: 2026-08-10 22:52:03+00:00 *Renesas and Wolfspeed have put Navitas Semiconductor in court within weeks of each other, and the fight is really about who gets paid as AI data centers push power chips harder.* Navitas Semiconductor is not fighting one lawsuit. It is fighting two, and both landed just as the company was trying to sell investors on a cleaner story about AI infrastructure, gallium nitride and silicon carbide power chips. That's the problem. You can like the market and still see the legal mess forming around it. Renesas Electronics sued Navitas in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on July 22, naming Navitas Semiconductor USA, CEO Chris Allexandre and executive Felicia Cheng as defendants, according to the federal docket. Reuters reported that Renesas accused Navitas of hiring away employees and using trade secrets tied to next-generation GaN chips for AI data centers. The allegation is specific. Renesas says Allexandre, who previously ran its Power Division before becoming Navitas CEO on September 1, 2025, and Cheng took confidential PowerPoint presentations containing product specifications, customer targets and market timelines. Renesas wants damages and an injunction blocking Navitas from using the information it says was taken. The timing is ugly. ## Wolfspeed piles on too Wolfspeed filed its own patent infringement suit against Navitas on July 7 in Delaware federal court. Five U.S. patents, it said: 8,169,005, 10,998,418, 10,886,396, 10,749,443 and 11,888,392. The products named were specific too - GaNFast, GaNSlim and GaNSafe, plus GeneSiC MOSFETs and SiCPAK modules. Navitas pushed back the next day. It disputes Wolfspeed's claims, and says it expects to prevail. On Navitas's July 27 second-quarter earnings call, Allexandre went further. He called the Wolfspeed case "the last step in a campaign of harassment and intimidation through litigation" and said it "looks like a desperate move." That's not polite legal language. It's a warning to investors that Navitas sees the lawsuits as part of a competitive squeeze, not isolated courtroom housekeeping. There is a direct link between the two opponents. A Wolfspeed filing says Renesas reported beneficial ownership tied to 16.85 million Wolfspeed shares and 6.46 million shares issuable through convertible notes, subject to a 39.9% voting-power cap. You don't need to overread that fact, but you shouldn't ignore it either. When two related legal fronts appear in the same month, the market is right to ask what else is coming. ## The chips are worth fighting over Renesas bought Transphorm in June 2024 to add GaN power technology, and its SuperGaN products now sit in the same broad fight as Navitas's GaNFast line. Renesas said at the time that the Transphorm deal gave it GaN products for electric vehicles, data centers, AI power, renewable energy and fast chargers. That was not a side bet. It was a way into a faster-growing layer of power electronics. Navitas has been trying to make the same turn. In its second-quarter results, the company said revenue rose 22% sequentially to $10.5 million, while high-power markets grew more than 50% year over year. It also said AI infrastructure, including data centers and grid and energy infrastructure, should make up more than one-third of total sales by year-end. Those are small numbers beside Renesas, but they explain the pressure. Power delivery inside AI racks is no longer a sleepy component business. As racks move toward higher voltage architectures, every saved watt matters because wasted power turns into heat, and heat turns into cost. GaN and SiC are useful because they can switch faster and waste less energy than older silicon devices. That is the simple version. The lawsuits are the expensive version. Frankly, this is the part investors should watch more closely than the slogans around "Navitas 2.0." The company has cash, it has a sharper market focus, and it has a real AI power story. It also has two active lawsuits from companies with deep reasons to slow it down or get paid from its growth. None of these cases has gone to trial. Renesas's allegations remain allegations, Wolfspeed's patent claims remain unproved, and Navitas has said it will defend itself. But you don't get to treat the legal risk as background noise. For a small power-chip company trying to win inside AI infrastructure, intellectual property is not paperwork. It is the product. **Also read:** [Regulators Reject bunq's US Bank Charter Bid for a Second Time](https://startupfortune.com/regulators-reject-bunqs-us-bank-charter-bid-for-a-second-time/) • [Micron Stock Plunged 28.7% in July, Then Jumped 10% in a Single Day](https://startupfortune.com/micron-stock-plunged-287-in-july-then-jumped-10-in-a-single-day/) • [JANA Partners Presses Fiserv's Board After a Brutal Earnings Reset](https://startupfortune.com/jana-partners-presses-fiservs-board-after-a-brutal-earnings-reset/)