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  • Author Author: rscasny
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How will GaN change the world of electronics design in the next decade?

rscasny

Silicon has been the kingpin of the semiconductor industry for a long time. And it should be: it has an ideal crystal structure for use as a semiconductor, But in today's world where ultra-low power and an extremely small package are two important factors in electronics design, maybe silicon has sort of reached its limits. What's the alternative?

 

As a semiconductor material, gallium nitride (GaN) is getting the attention that silicon once had. GaN works will in high voltage and high temperature applications. Plus it has high switching frequencies than silicon and attractive for its high energy efficiency.

 

So, how will GaN change the world of electronics design in the next decade?

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  • I am looking forward to using GaN devices in the near future because of their lower on resistance. It looks like you could come up with something closer to an ideal diode than what can be done today.

    GaN devices have many great performance features which allow a device equivalent to a silicon power mosfet to be smaller, faster, higher voltage, higher temperature, etc. However the simpler GaN devices are depletion mode devices (normally on and they need a negative voltage to turn off) E-GaN (enhancement mode GaN) devices are possible, but not all semi houses have a good method to make them and patents are slowing adoption. It is also not yet feasible to shrink GaN devices as small as silicon transistors, so large scale integrated circuits are a ways off. It will take time to solve the scaling issues and then it will take time for the patents to expire before we see really cheap GaN chips on the market. In the mean time there will be lots of applications where the performance gains make it worth the extra cost to use Gan devices.

    There is lots of money being spent on the race to get feasible chips first, so maybe breakthroughs will occur faster than most are predicting, and prices may erode faster than the patents, but I still expect prices will be at a premium for a while.

    Of course this is all speculation and it is the internet, so I could be full of hot air...image

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  • I am looking forward to using GaN devices in the near future because of their lower on resistance. It looks like you could come up with something closer to an ideal diode than what can be done today.

    GaN devices have many great performance features which allow a device equivalent to a silicon power mosfet to be smaller, faster, higher voltage, higher temperature, etc. However the simpler GaN devices are depletion mode devices (normally on and they need a negative voltage to turn off) E-GaN (enhancement mode GaN) devices are possible, but not all semi houses have a good method to make them and patents are slowing adoption. It is also not yet feasible to shrink GaN devices as small as silicon transistors, so large scale integrated circuits are a ways off. It will take time to solve the scaling issues and then it will take time for the patents to expire before we see really cheap GaN chips on the market. In the mean time there will be lots of applications where the performance gains make it worth the extra cost to use Gan devices.

    There is lots of money being spent on the race to get feasible chips first, so maybe breakthroughs will occur faster than most are predicting, and prices may erode faster than the patents, but I still expect prices will be at a premium for a while.

    Of course this is all speculation and it is the internet, so I could be full of hot air...image

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