What is Gallium Nitride (GaN)?

What is Gallium Nitride (GaN)?

GaN power semiconductors are gaining attention as key components in next-generation high-performance EVs, helping to reduce size and weight while increasing efficiency. These considerations address issues related to scope. Engineers can use GaN to create power electronics systems that are up to 4 times smaller, lighter, and lose 4 times less energy than Si-based systems. Zero reverse recovery reduces switching losses in battery chargers and traction inverters, as well as benefits such as higher frequency and faster switching rates. Additionally, reducing switch turn-on and turn-off losses helps reduce the weight and volume of capacitors, inductors, and transformers used in applications such as EV chargers and inverters.

Gallium Nitride (GaN) is a very hard and mechanically very stable wide-gap semiconductor material. Gallium nitride-based power components are clearly superior to silicon-based components due to higher breakdown strength, faster switching, higher thermal conductivity and lower on-resistance. GaN crystals can be grown on a variety of substrates, including sapphire, silicon carbide (SiC) and silicon (Si). Growing GaN epitaxial layers on silicon allows the use of existing silicon manufacturing infrastructure, eliminating the need for costly specialized fabrication facilities and allowing the use of low-cost, large-diameter silicon wafers.

GaN materials are used in the manufacture of semiconductor power components, and can also be used in the manufacture of radio frequency components and light emitting diodes (LEDs). Gallium Nitride technology has demonstrated that it can replace silicon-based semiconductor technology in power conversion, radio frequency and analog applications.

High electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) use a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG), which consists of a junction between two materials with different energy gaps. GaN-based HEMTs switch faster, have higher thermal conductivity and lower on-resistance than equivalent silicon-based solutions, so using GaN transistors and integrated circuits in circuits can improve efficiency and reduce size and reduce the cost of various power conversion systems.

More than a hundred years ago, at the dawn of the electronic age, power design engineers struggled to find the ideal switch to enable fast, efficient power conversion, the ability to convert raw electrical energy into controlled, useful flowing electrons. The first to emerge was vacuum tube technology. However, its low energy efficiency due to the large amount of heat it generates, and its large size and high cost limit its application. Then in the 1950s, the transistor was widely adopted. Its small size and advantages of higher efficiency made it a "holy grail" in the industry, and it quickly replaced the vacuum tube while promoting the huge , Brand-new market development, which cannot be achieved by vacuum tube technology.

Silicon quickly became the material of choice for manufacturing semiconductor transistors. This is not only because of its intrinsically superior electrical properties, but also because it is much cheaper to produce than vacuum tubes. Thereafter, in the 1970s and 1980s, silicon transistors and subsequent integrated circuits developed rapidly. The law of Moore's Law describes that the performance of transistors will be doubled in about 18 months, and its manufacturing cost will also be reduced, which drives the industry to introduce new products with higher performance and lower cost, which are popular with customers. . In power conversion, silicon-based power MOSFET components practice this law and become the main factor for the vigorous development of silicon-based transistors.

Like vacuum tube technology, silicon-based power MOSFETs have been pushed to achieve higher performance and lower price - has reached the limit. Fortunately, the market continues to demand ideal switches with extremely fast switching, no resistance, and lower cost, and new materials are emerging that enable high-performance power conversion transistors and integrated circuits.