Page 34 - EE Times Europe March 2022

34 EE|Times EUROPE

POWERING THE FUTURE
Wide-Bandgap Semiconductors: The Next

Wave of GaN and SiC

By Gina Roos

spenCore’s PowerUP Expo 2021
devoted a full day to wide-bandgap
semiconductors, specifically gallium
A nitride and silicon carbide. The
WBG panel discussion focused on “the next
wave of GaN and SiC,” taking its cue from
the day’s topic presentations, including new
product developments, technology challenges,
and wafer manufacturing.
Thanks to their savings in size, weight, and
cost, as well as their higher efficiency, GaN
and SiC power devices are making big pushes
beyond fast chargers and renewable energy
into data centers, motor drivers, electric vehi-
cles, and other e-mobility applications.
The panel comprised six industry experts.
The panelists in the GaN market were Alex
Lidow, CEO and co-founder of EPC, who
discussed GaN integration technology;
Stephen Olivier, vice president of corporate
marketing and investor relations at Navitas
Semiconductor, who examined GaN’s role in
electrification; and Caroline O’Brien, CEO of
Kubos Semiconductors, who highlighted the
company’s cubic-GaN technology for LEDs.
EPC’s 100-V, 65-A ePower chipset — EPC23101 eGaN IC + EPC2302 eGaN FET — delivers
96% efficiency at 1-MHz switching frequency and 97% efficiency at 500-kHz switching
GaN and SiC power devices frequency. (Source: EPC)
are making big pushes
beyond fast chargers and GaN: EFFICIENCY AND CARBON SAVINGS drift is reduced, O’Brien said.
Similarly, GaN power device manufactur-
renewable energy into motor Kubos’s O’Brien kicked off the panel with an ers like Navitas are focused on delivering
introduction to the company’s new mate-
drivers, EVs, and other rial technology, cubic-GaN for LEDs. The technologies and devices that support
e-mobility applications. next generation in lighting innovations is electrification, which, in turn, reduces the
world’s reliance on fossil fuels.
assumed to be the existing LED technology,
but she counters that Kubos’s cubic-GaN “Today, over 80% of the energy that
LED technology could deliver a further 20% becomes electricity is based on fossil fuels,”
The SiC panelists were Pete Losee, director to 40% increase in efficiency. This trans- said Navitas’s Olivier. “One of the ways that
of technology development at UnitedSiC lates into a carbon footprint and carbon we can improve that and shift from 20%
(recently acquired by Qorvo), who discussed savings of nearly 700 million tons of CO 2 renewables and electrical loads to 80% is by
his company’s expanding portfolio with the emissions over five years in lighting and using GaN, which is a big push toward the
750-V Gen 4 product series; Paul Kierstead, displays, she said. electrification of our world.
global director of power product market- O’Brien said the new cubic-GaN can elim- “When we look at the small size of a GaN
ing at Wolfspeed, who covered SiC’s role inate the inefficiencies in green and amber component and how we can integrate fea-
in renewable energy power conversion and lights and offer opportunities in producing tures and functions and reduce components
storage; and Rob Rhoades, president and solutions that not only can be more efficient from legacy systems, we can have up to a 10×
CTO of X-trinsic, who provided insight into but also would improve color rendering and smaller CO footprint than a silicon equiva-
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SiC wafer manufacturing. mimic daylight more effectively. lent,” he said.
Common themes among the panelists The “green gap,” or drop in efficiency in “Every time we ship a GaN power IC,
included efficiency and integration, along green and amber LEDs, is said to reduce the we reduce 4 kg of CO . That’s a huge net
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with reducing the world’s reliance on fossil performance and increase the cost and size benefit by using new technology. We believe
fuels with the help of WBG semiconductors. of RGBs. With cubic-GaN technology, the that we can accelerate the transition from
Panelists also agreed that the move to quantum-confined stark effect and electric internal-combustion-engine cars to EVs
200-mm wafers, coming soon, will be a further fields are eliminated, providing benefits in by three years worldwide and reduce road
cost savings. scale and longer wavelengths, and spectral sector emissions by 20%, in all addressing a

MARCH 2022 | www.eetimes.eu