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Power


GaN: industry’s emerging powerhouse


By Denis Marcon, general manager, Innoscience Europe B


y all accounts the global GaN power device market is booming. Whichever set of figures you care to take, the sector is set to be worth billions of dollars by the end of


the decade. For instance, according to Straits Research, the world’s GaN power device market will reach $2.8 billion by 2030, up from just $178.2 million in 2021, giving an eye-catching CAGR of 35.8 per cent during the forecast period (2022-2030). Indeed, although there are many similar reports (referencing different key market players), our view here at Innoscience is that the power GaN market will be significantly larger than any recent research indicates by as soon as 2025.


So, what’s driving this rapid growth? Well, in short, higher energy efficiency, greater power density, faster switching frequencies, smaller size and cheaper overall system bill-of- material (BOM). Over the past two years, many leading brands made GaN their technology of choice for smart device adapters and chargers. Apple, for example, says that its desktop chargers use integrated GaN technology for “a safe and efficient high-wattage charging experience”. Referencing a wall charger, Apple says: “GaN technology increases charging efficiency and speed, so you get a lot of power in a compact cube.”


 Aside from fast-charging products in the consumer sector (the pioneer market for GaN applications), many other industries can tap into the benefits that GaN power devices deliver, not least automotive, e-mobility, aerospace/defence, renewable energy, data centres, LED drivers, consumer audio, phone handsets, HVDC electric power transmission systems and smart grids. These markets are becoming increasingly aware that leveraging the stable operation of compact power switching systems with high efficiency can bring notable commercial advantages. Focussing on an application such as data centre power supply, GaN can address the bottleneck of large ASIC chips and effectively


58 June 2023


on-resistance (RDS(on)). Moreover, it has been demonstrated that such technology significantly helps to keep the dynamic RDSon under control.


We have already shipped millions of devices for commercial GaN applications with zero returns regarding intrinsic device performance or reliability.


meet the high current demand for GPUs. GaN’s high-frequency advantage is able to reduce the area of the power supply system and realise high power density supply.


Regarding new energy vehicles, GaN is a solution for increasingly popular sensing solutions such as LiDAR, since both Si and SiC fail to address the industry’s requirements for high switching speed.


With so much potential, you could easily wonder why GaN has not unleashed a tidal wave of applications. However, like any emerging technology, there are engineering and market challenges to overcome, such as reliable performance, ease-of-use, wide availability/ security of supply and a competitive price point.


Meeting market demands Addressing these issues became the core reason for founding Innoscience in late 2015, based largely on the development of our own InnoGaN technology.


Performance is at the heart of this innovation, thanks primarily to a strain enhancement layer technology that sees the deposition of a specific layer after the gate stack definition. The stress modulation produced by the strain enhancement layer leads to extra piezoelectric polarisations. This effect causes the 2DEG density to grow and, subsequently, sheet resistance to reduce by 66 per cent in comparison with a device without a strain layer. The result is very low specific


Of course, GaN is inherently a normally-on process, but system and application engineers typically demand normally-off. This presented early users with a few issues as driving GaN became increasingly complex. The solution to this problem arrived in a variety of ways, principally by deploying a cascode strategy with a discrete or co-packaged driver. However, these approaches harbour some limitations regarding cost and packaging size. To circumvent such issues, here at Innoscience we grow a p-GaN layer on top of the AlGaN barrier, forming a Schottky contact with the p-GaN layer. This results in normally-off/e- mode operation.


Despite these breakthroughs, we understood from the outset that enabling broader adoption of GaN technology in the power device market would require more than just reliable performance and ease-of-use. A trio of further issues factors required surmounting. First, engineers want affordable GaN technology; the industry is simply unwilling to pay a high premium for GaN devices. There is also demand for large manufacturing capacity able to deliver high-volume output and adapt accordingly to any associated fluctuations. Indeed, high volume availability contributes to


Components in Electronics


www.cieonline.co.uk.uk


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