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GaN electronics  technology


To ensure a high reliability for all of its products, Integra employs a gold-metallization process. This element has an incredibly high activation energy, reducing the likelihood that it will undergo electromigration, which could ultimately cause premature ageing of the transistor


drift in performance with time.”


One avenue that Integra can explore to improve the performance of its HEMTs is to shorten gate length. The company is going to do just this, and has a target of 0.3 µm in its sights. “I’m absolutely convinced that we’ll have comparable devices [to the leading GaN HEMT makers] by next year,” claims Titizian.


To ensure a high reliability for all of its products, Integra employs a gold-metallization process. This element has an incredibly high activation energy, reducing the likelihood that it will undergo electromigration, which could ultimately cause premature ageing of the transistor.


Over the next year or so Integra plans to introduce several more GaN products. It has already started adding to its family of GaN S-band products and it is also producing cousins operating at higher frequencies. It has one device operating in the C-band, and over the next few years more devices will be launched in both this band and the X- band.


To protect its product’s commercial future, Integra is looking at the intellectual property surrounding GaN transistors, and deciding whether it needs to patent its technology. “There is a lot of public information out there. You can put together a device without infringing on other people’s IP,” says Titizian.


Performance at a price? The costs associated with manufacturing Integra’s GaN S-band products are significantly higher than those associated with production of silicon transistors operating in a similar part of the microwave spectrum. However, Titizian expects that this cost gap will close as products migrate to larger wafers: “Gallium nitride on 6-inch silicon will probably be available next year, and at some point GaN-on-silicon could be available on much larger wafers, such as 12-inch wafers.” This will drive down manufacturing costs, and Titizian believes that there should come a time when GaN is comparable to silicon, in terms of the dollar-per-Watt metric.


Integra is also starting to develop GaN-on-SiC devices, which it says are the only wide bandgap RF technology


August / September 2010 www.compoundsemiconductor.net 25


that the US military is currently willing to deploy. “We are going to offer both technologies to our customers, and we believe that GaN-on-silicon may be cheaper in the long run.” Although GaN-on-SiC tends to have the edge in terms of reliability and output power, Titizian says that many applications may be adequately served with the silicon-based equivalent. Titizian reveals that processing GaN-on-SiC wafers does not require any major modifications to the fab. “With the ICP etcher we can do the vias – that is not an issue any more.”


Sales of Integra’s GaN-based products are expected to grow significantly over the next five years, and account for over half of the company’s revenue in 2015. However, that does not mean that Integra will be turning its back on its customers wanting to buy silicon products.


“We are not going to abandon silicon because we’ve made commitments to our customers,” says Titizian. “Most of these systems have a long life cycle that we need to support, and we will support that.”


Keeping customers happy has long been acknowledged as one of the keys to a successful business, alongside the launching of new, superior products. Integra is executing on both these fronts, and it looks to be assured of a bright future.


Integra has one HEMT


operating in the C-band: the IGN4450M100. This transistor produces more than 100 W of output power at 4.4-5.0 GHz


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