When engineers talk about high-voltage DC contactors and relays, the name GIGAVAC tends to come up quickly — and for good reason. Over roughly two decades, this California-based company helped define the standards, technologies, and vocabulary of an entire product category. Understanding where GIGAVAC came from, what it built, and how it evolved is not just a history lesson — it’s essential context for anyone working in electric vehicles, energy storage, or industrial power electronics today.
The Roots: Where GIGAVAC Came From
GIGAVAC was not born in a vacuum (no pun intended). The company was founded in 2002 by the management team that had previously built Kilovac, a well-regarded high-voltage relay brand that was eventually sold to TE Connectivity. That founding team brought with them decades of hands-on experience in the engineering, manufacturing, and application of high-voltage switching components.
Perhaps even more telling is the background of GIGAVAC’s Chief Scientist — a former VP of Engineering at Jennings Technology who held the foundational patents for many of the relay designs still in use across the industry today. In other words, GIGAVAC wasn’t a startup stumbling into a niche market; it was a deliberate effort by veterans who had spent careers mastering it.
The company’s original tagline — “Today’s Experts in High Voltage Relays” — wasn’t marketing hyperbole. It was a statement of pedigree.
Early Days: Building the Foundation (2002–2006)
GIGAVAC officially opened its doors on March 31, 2003, operating out of a modest facility in Carpinteria, near Santa Barbara, California. The initial product line was focused on high-voltage and RF induction relays — components designed to:
- Operate at high voltages with minimal RF losses
- Maintain reliable dielectric isolation
- Function across a wide range of altitudes and harsh environmental conditions
- Provide superior switching performance compared to traditional open-air relays
A key technology advantage at this stage was the use of vacuum as a dielectric medium. Vacuum offers approximately eight times greater dielectric strength than air, and because there is no oxidation in a sealed vacuum environment, low-resistance copper contacts could be used, allowing the relay to carry significantly more current than conventional designs.
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Sales grew quickly. The company’s reputation for technical depth and customer service enabled it to expand manufacturing at its California facility and begin addressing the next frontier: high-power DC contactors.
The EPIC® Breakthrough: Sealing Technology That Changed the Game (2006–2008)
As GIGAVAC’s engineering team worked to serve customers with more demanding power requirements, they faced a persistent challenge: how to create a sealed contactor with genuine high-power switching capability that could operate reliably in industrial and electrification applications.
The answer was the patented EPIC® (Extended Performance Impervious Ceramic) sealed contactor series, launched in late 2006. The EPIC platform introduced several meaningful advances:
- Ceramic-to-metal sealing — enabling the use of virtually any gas fill inside the sealed chamber, including sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆) and nitrogen mixtures, which dramatically reduced contact wear during switching
- Hermetic integrity — providing robust protection against contamination, moisture, and pressure changes in field environments
- Versatile gas dielectrics — SF₆ acts as an excellent insulator; when combined with nitrogen, the relay becomes effectively “bounceless,” significantly extending contact life under heavy switching loads
- Extended performance envelope — the sealed design allowed GIGAVAC to offer contactors suitable for ESD test equipment, medical defibrillators, cable testing, battery management, and more
The EPIC technology became the cornerstone of GIGAVAC’s product differentiation and the platform upon which all subsequent contactor families were built.
Buoyed by strong sales growth, the company moved into a new, larger facility in July 2008, marking the transition from a small specialty manufacturer to a serious industrial supplier.
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Portfolio Expansion: Serving the Growing Electrification Market (2008–2018)
The years following the facility move saw GIGAVAC expand its product lineup substantially, responding to growing demand across automotive, military, industrial, and heavy-vehicle sectors. Key additions to the portfolio included:
- GX Industrial Contactors — designed for demanding industrial applications requiring high-cycle life
- MX High-Reliability Contactors — engineered to meet military-grade specifications for harsh and high-reliability use cases
- HX Series — introduced specifically to address the rising voltage requirements of electrification applications, particularly electric vehicles and EV charging infrastructure
- Sensing Contactors — advanced products incorporating diagnostic and feedback capabilities for more intelligent circuit management
- Manual Disconnect Switches — rounding out the company’s sealed switching ecosystem
Throughout this period, GIGAVAC also held firmly to its roots in high-voltage relays, serving industries including medical equipment, semiconductor testing, telecommunications, and power distribution. The company’s ability to offer both vacuum and gas-filled technologies across a wide voltage range — from 2 kV to 100 kV — gave it an unusually broad market reach for a privately held manufacturer.
By the mid-2010s, GIGAVAC had grown to serve more than 1,500 customers across the automotive, battery storage, industrial, heavy vehicle, and off-road markets, with a workforce of over 270 employees operating from an ISO 9001-certified, 40,000 square foot facility.
Acquisition by Sensata Technologies: A $233 Million Vote of Confidence (2018)
In September 2018, Sensata Technologies — a global industrial technology company and leading provider of sensors, electrical protection, and power management solutions — announced it had reached an agreement to acquire GIGAVAC for approximately $233 million.
The strategic rationale was clear. Electrification was accelerating across automotive, heavy vehicle, and industrial markets, and high-voltage contactors were mission-critical components in battery electric vehicles, EV charging stations, and energy storage systems. GIGAVAC’s established technology, customer relationships, and engineering talent gave Sensata an immediate and meaningful position in this high-growth space.
As Sensata’s then-President and CEO Martha Sullivan put it, the acquisition immediately increased the company’s content and capabilities for electrification — at a time when EV content was already surpassing traditional combustion vehicle content in Sensata’s portfolio.
Sensata completed the acquisition in October 2018 and designated GIGAVAC’s Carpinteria headquarters as a center of excellence for future contactor and relay development. The GIGAVAC brand continued to operate within Sensata’s portfolio, serving customers in aerospace and defense, electric vehicles, clean energy, and industrial applications under the Sensata | GIGAVAC designation.
GIGAVAC’s Enduring Legacy
GIGAVAC’s story is, at its core, a story about what happens when deep engineering expertise meets an inflection point in market demand. The company didn’t simply ride a wave — it helped create the technical vocabulary and product benchmarks that engineers still reference when specifying high-voltage DC switching components.
Several lasting contributions define the GIGAVAC legacy:
- Standardizing ceramic-sealed contactor technology for EV and industrial use cases
- Demonstrating that sealed, hermetic designs could achieve both long service life and high switching reliability
- Bridging the gap between traditional high-voltage relay applications (RF, medical, test equipment) and emerging electrification markets
- Establishing performance expectations around current capacity, voltage endurance, and temperature range that continue to shape procurement decisions today
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