Abstract:
Wide bandgap materials have received much attention for their potential to revolutionize the world of power devices. Spider chart comparisons of the materials properties of GaN or SiC show just about every property outperforming their Silicon counterpart. Higher breakdown, higher mobility, higher temperature tolerance allowing lower resistance, lower capacitance, higher frequency devices. Market forecasts counting on fast growing adoption in new markets such as renewable energy and electrical vehicles are reaching into the billions of dollars, and are just around the corner…
The realization of these promises is more complex due to the need to redesign not only the transistors themselves, but also the packaging, the circuit topology, the system architecture, and the application. And with more of the cost and the features determined by the substrate itself, several elements of the supply chain from substrate growth, to epitaxy, to dicing and assembly need adjustments from the established Silicon world as well.
In this brief overview, key features and challenges for GaN-on-Si will be discussed and highlighted with experimental results at ON Semiconductor.