Turkish power electronics manufacturer with GaN converter R&D and electronics reliability expertise across EU industrial consortia.
WAT Motor is a Turkish industrial company specialising in power electronics and motor-drive systems, based in Tekirdag near Istanbul. In H2020, they contributed expertise in two directions: electronics reliability engineering (physics of failure, chip-package-board robustness) and advanced power conversion (high-frequency, high-density AC/DC converters using Gallium Nitride semiconductors). Their coordinator role in PORT-BICPD — hosting a Marie Curie researcher to push power-converter power density to best-in-class levels — signals genuine in-house R&D capacity, not just manufacturing. For industry partners, they represent a practitioner bridge between component-level reliability science and real converter hardware.
Coordinated PORT-BICPD (MSCA-IF), a dedicated research fellowship on power factor correction, soft-switching, and Gallium Nitride AC/DC converters targeting best-in-class power density.
Participated in iRel40, an Innovation Action on Quality 4.0 methods including physics of failure, robustness validation, and design-for-reliability at chip-package-board level.
PORT-BICPD keywords include high-frequency magnetics and soft-switching, indicating active development of converter topologies beyond standard hard-switching designs.
WAT Motor entered H2020 through iRel40 (2020), a large industry consortium focused on predicting and preventing electronic component failures — a quality and reliability angle directly relevant to automotive and industrial electronics. Their second project, PORT-BICPD (2021), pivoted sharply toward power conversion performance: GaN semiconductors, high power density, and soft-switching topologies. The shift suggests the company moved from validating existing hardware reliability toward designing next-generation converter architectures. In two years they went from failure prevention to frontier power electronics, which points to an organisation deliberately upgrading its R&D profile.
WAT Motor appears to be repositioning from reliability testing services toward proprietary high-efficiency power converter development, making them a candidate partner for projects involving GaN power stages, EV chargers, or industrial motor drives.
WAT Motor has acted both as a participant in a large multi-partner consortium (iRel40, an Innovation Action with dozens of companies) and as a project coordinator hosting a Marie Curie fellow (PORT-BICPD). Leading an MSCA-IF grant requires direct supervision of a researcher, which is unusual for a private industrial company and suggests they can absorb individual researchers or small teams. Their 84 unique partners come almost entirely from the large iRel40 consortium, so their broad network is inherited rather than built through repeated bilateral relationships.
Through two projects, WAT Motor has formal connections with 84 organisations across 13 countries — a reach driven by iRel40's wide Industry 4.0 consortium rather than individual partnership choices. Their geographic footprint is European, with the Turkish base providing access to a lower-cost engineering market adjacent to the EU.
WAT Motor is one of very few Turkish non-SME industrial companies that has both joined a major EU electronics reliability consortium and independently coordinated an MSCA fellowship, demonstrating they can play at both the applied industry and fundamental research levels. Their specific GaN converter expertise is commercially valuable as electrification (EV drivetrains, industrial motor drives, renewable inverters) creates strong demand for higher-efficiency power stages. For consortium builders targeting Turkey as a third-country partner, WAT Motor offers a credible industrial anchor with demonstrated EU project management experience.
