7 ms·

TI expands internal manufacturing for gallium nitride (GAN) semiconductors

alephnerd 2y ago
GaN semiconductors are heavily used in military and space applications like Radar, Lasers, and Power ICs. The US has recently been subsidizing the development of an alternative supply chain for GaN and other similar semiconductor in Japan (eg. the TI announcement), India [0], Phillipines [1], Australia [2], etc [0] - https://www.state.gov/new-partnership-with-india-to-explore-semiconductor-supply-chain-opportunities/ https://www.state.gov/new-partnership-with-india-to-explore-... [1] - https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-trilateral-chapter-united-states-japan-and-philippines https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-trilateral-chapter-united-... [2] - https://www.ussc.edu.au/expanding-the-national-security-innovation-base-how-australia-and-the-united-states-can-collaborate-to-harness-their-commercial-technology-ecosystems https://www.ussc.edu.au/expanding-the-national-security-inno...
- ninju 2y ago
  Its also quite popular with commercial electronics https://www.belkin.com/products/product-resources/gan-chargers/ https://www.belkin.com/products/product-resources/gan-charge...
  - saturn8601 2y ago
    I can't wait for the day that we can get GaN replacement adapters for all of our old vintage electronics. Its such a cool technology. We have SSD replacements for spinning disks, HDMI and OLED mods for video and now the final frontier: old terrible non switch mode (or even early switch mode) PSU replaced with GaN supplies.
    - nsxwolf 2y ago
      Can't we do that now? There's already a cottage industry of replacement power supplies in the vintage computing and video game sphere, I would imagine GaN products will dominate that space eventually.
      - saturn8601 2y ago
        Seems like there is a lack of power supply design expertise there, maybe due to certification requirements or possibly just the margins on a replacement PSU is much less than something like a flash cart or HDMI solution. I personally wouldn't dare to design a PSU: I would probably burn my house down. My hope is that certified designs that target various DC voltages will cover a lot of use cases. EDIT: Oh sorry I misread your comment. You are claiming there is a large selection already? I don't see it as often as I see other 'mods'. Are you speaking about any particular vintage computing/gaming community in particular? For consoles all I see is junk coming out of China. I've been burned too many times by that.
        telgareith 2y ago
        Its not quite turnkey, but USB PD (maybe with PPS, which lets the device specify voltage and current directly instead of simply picking a profile) from a known good manufacturer, and a trigger board (crapshoot there unfortunately) covers 99% of stuff. Also, You can buy SMPS modules on mouser or digikey now for under $10. Or if you're lucky jameco will have it. Sometimes even rotten chinese garbage can be useful- I have a portable USB supply for my DSLR that was originaly powered by seriously unsafe means- but the battery drm/sensor fakeout is good, so I just used the 9v USB-PD profile and a linear regulator. Canon makes one, I seem to recall it was AC only, produced whine in the audio capture in video mode, and was nearly $100.
    - Havoc 2y ago
      Many power delivery bricks are now gan and you can pull a variety of voltages out of them. Incl 12v on some so options are available if you can solder
      - saturn8601 2y ago
        Yeah we are starting to see them and its awesome. Im seeing some efforts to convert barrel jack connectors of game consoles to have USB PD and then connect that to a simple cell phone adapter. You can then toss those bulky bricks in the trash. But im really referring to redesigned internal PSUs that use GAN for things like old game consoles. But I would take external PSU replacements as well! Oh how I dream of tossing that Xbox 360 PSU in the trash. Like what were they thinking? You can kill someone with that thing!
  - rodgerd 2y ago
    That's part of it - GAN-FETs are becoming very popular in the audio world (e.g. the Peachtree GaN power amps).
    - gtvwill 2y ago
      GaN has been getting HUGE in the audio realm, less so in western companies but in Asia in the PA realm its been the go-to for a few years now. Admarks AD442(4x4200w @8ohm) and AD60(2x6000w @ 8ohm) are a great example. 1U, Compact and more power than you can poke a stick at and fairly reliable. Also their pricing dumps on the offerings in the west (Both well under $2000 AUD). Just be warned you want MINIMUM 240v 15A or 32A single phase power circuits for these and probably run them at 1/4 or 1/8th rated output for ultra low THD.
      - rodgerd 2y ago
        Yeah, it's definitely coming via the Chinese companies, and Korean as well (HiFi Rose), and everywhere from budget to expensive. Class D amps have been making headway against traditional scepticism for a while now, and GaN switching performance is pushing that even harder. Peachtree seem to be one of the US companies pushing GaN in a big way, including their pure-digital amps.
whalesalad 2y ago
Wild. I recall back in the early 2000's my dad was working at ITT Gilfilan (I think they are defunct now - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT-Gilfillan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT-Gilfillan) and the latest hotness was Gallium Arsenide radar technology. Pretty quickly it seems we leveled up to Gallium Nitride.
- preisschild 2y ago
  Yeah the latest and greatest radars (Raytheon AN/SPY-6) is using GaN instead of GaAs (like the older AN/SPY-1 did) too Really cool stuff
- kjs3 2y ago
  I always remember GaAs as the tech most responsible for killing the Cray-3/Cray-4.
- venusenvy47 2y ago
  GaN was already becoming popular in the early 2000's for high power RF amplifiers because they operate at higher supply voltages than GaAs. Cree (now Wolfspeed) and Nitronex were big names in GaN back then, with RFMD and TriQuint joining in soon after.
lysace 2y ago
> at its factory in Aizu, Japan. Which is great since it's not in China, which the world's democratic countries needs to work on uncoupling from since it's a) a totalitarian regime, b) part of the weird BRICS network. Remember that the R stands for Russia. We should aim to keep high-tech manufacturing in democratic countries. Automation is typically what makes this possible in new factories.
- muxator 2y ago
  With all its present and past limitations, Brazil is a democracy. I do not know India enough, but it is not a regime either.
  - lysace 2y ago
    I did not claim the opposite. Although I do question the morality of partnering with Russia in 2024.
  - varjag 2y ago
    It's worth remembering that the origin of BRICS was the Goldman Sachs portfolio for emerging markets. For some bizarre reason the term became loved by Western far left and then took a life of its own.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Yes, it is. Every government is a regime: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/regime https://www.dictionary.com/browse/regime The word frequently has a negative connotation, but that isn't strictly part of the definition.
- saturn8601 2y ago
  Whats your beef with BRICS? There should be competition in the world against the US dollar. It keeps the West more honest if there was someone nipping at their heels. Yeah its a mess backed by some unsavory countries but at least they are trying. Think about everything in your life. There is always at least 2-3 options. Why don't we really have that at a country level? We got the US, the rest of the west is essentially just vassal states for them and then we maybe got China but they may collapse before they amount to anything. Thats it.
dvh 2y ago
GaN diodes have higher voltage drop (1.4-1.7) than Schottky (0.3) or even normal diodes (0.7). How can they be more efficient?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- connicpu 2y ago
  Probably not for the diode properties, but the transistor properties. I'm not an expert in this field, but some quick googling says GaN transistors (compared to silicon) have faster switching speeds and lower on-state resistance. I'm sure there's other tradeoffs, but those are great properties for high power, high frequency circuits.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  Here's what ST says[1]: The very high electron mobility of GaN material allows devices with very low on-resistance and exceptionally high switching frequencies, which are key advantages in the design of next generation power systems, especially those for electric vehicles and renewable energy applications. Regarding the band gap[2]: It has a wide bandgap of 3.4 eV and an electron mobility of 1,700 cm2/Vs. Comparatively, Silicon sits at 1.1 eV and 1,400 cm2/Vs. GaN’s inherent properties thus result in a higher breakdown voltage and lower on-state resistance, which means that the component can more efficiently handle greater loads compared to a similar-sized silicon device, which then leads to a lower bill of materials. [1]: https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/about/innovation---technology/GaN.html https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/about/innovation---tech... [2]: https://blog.st.com/powergan/ https://blog.st.com/powergan/
- londons_explore 2y ago
  You aim for no current to ever flow through the diode. Any time current might flow through the diode, you should either switch on the transistor (so the same current flows through the channel), or switch some other transistor in your circuit to block the current (ie. a series transistor with source and drain switched).
- adrian_b 2y ago
tester756 2y ago
Material science is where huge growth potential for semiconductors is available

GaN semiconductors are heavily used in military and space applications like Radar, Lasers, and Power ICs. The US has recently been subsidizing the development of an alternative supply chain for GaN and other similar semiconductor in Japan (eg. the TI announcement), India [0], Phillipines [1], Australia [2], etc [0] - https://www.state.gov/new-partnership-with-india-to-explore-semiconductor-supply-chain-opportunities/ https://www.state.gov/new-partnership-with-india-to-explore-... [1] - https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-trilateral-chapter-united-states-japan-and-philippines https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-trilateral-chapter-united-... [2] - https://www.ussc.edu.au/expanding-the-national-security-innovation-base-how-australia-and-the-united-states-can-collaborate-to-harness-their-commercial-technology-ecosystems https://www.ussc.edu.au/expanding-the-national-security-inno...

ninju 2y ago
Its also quite popular with commercial electronics https://www.belkin.com/products/product-resources/gan-chargers/ https://www.belkin.com/products/product-resources/gan-charge...
- saturn8601 2y ago
  I can't wait for the day that we can get GaN replacement adapters for all of our old vintage electronics. Its such a cool technology. We have SSD replacements for spinning disks, HDMI and OLED mods for video and now the final frontier: old terrible non switch mode (or even early switch mode) PSU replaced with GaN supplies.
  - nsxwolf 2y ago
    Can't we do that now? There's already a cottage industry of replacement power supplies in the vintage computing and video game sphere, I would imagine GaN products will dominate that space eventually.
    - saturn8601 2y ago
      Seems like there is a lack of power supply design expertise there, maybe due to certification requirements or possibly just the margins on a replacement PSU is much less than something like a flash cart or HDMI solution. I personally wouldn't dare to design a PSU: I would probably burn my house down. My hope is that certified designs that target various DC voltages will cover a lot of use cases. EDIT: Oh sorry I misread your comment. You are claiming there is a large selection already? I don't see it as often as I see other 'mods'. Are you speaking about any particular vintage computing/gaming community in particular? For consoles all I see is junk coming out of China. I've been burned too many times by that.
      - telgareith 2y ago
        Its not quite turnkey, but USB PD (maybe with PPS, which lets the device specify voltage and current directly instead of simply picking a profile) from a known good manufacturer, and a trigger board (crapshoot there unfortunately) covers 99% of stuff. Also, You can buy SMPS modules on mouser or digikey now for under $10. Or if you're lucky jameco will have it. Sometimes even rotten chinese garbage can be useful- I have a portable USB supply for my DSLR that was originaly powered by seriously unsafe means- but the battery drm/sensor fakeout is good, so I just used the 9v USB-PD profile and a linear regulator. Canon makes one, I seem to recall it was AC only, produced whine in the audio capture in video mode, and was nearly $100.
  - Havoc 2y ago
    Many power delivery bricks are now gan and you can pull a variety of voltages out of them. Incl 12v on some so options are available if you can solder
    - saturn8601 2y ago
      Yeah we are starting to see them and its awesome. Im seeing some efforts to convert barrel jack connectors of game consoles to have USB PD and then connect that to a simple cell phone adapter. You can then toss those bulky bricks in the trash. But im really referring to redesigned internal PSUs that use GAN for things like old game consoles. But I would take external PSU replacements as well! Oh how I dream of tossing that Xbox 360 PSU in the trash. Like what were they thinking? You can kill someone with that thing!
- rodgerd 2y ago
  That's part of it - GAN-FETs are becoming very popular in the audio world (e.g. the Peachtree GaN power amps).
  - gtvwill 2y ago
    GaN has been getting HUGE in the audio realm, less so in western companies but in Asia in the PA realm its been the go-to for a few years now. Admarks AD442(4x4200w @8ohm) and AD60(2x6000w @ 8ohm) are a great example. 1U, Compact and more power than you can poke a stick at and fairly reliable. Also their pricing dumps on the offerings in the west (Both well under $2000 AUD). Just be warned you want MINIMUM 240v 15A or 32A single phase power circuits for these and probably run them at 1/4 or 1/8th rated output for ultra low THD.
    - rodgerd 2y ago
      Yeah, it's definitely coming via the Chinese companies, and Korean as well (HiFi Rose), and everywhere from budget to expensive. Class D amps have been making headway against traditional scepticism for a while now, and GaN switching performance is pushing that even harder. Peachtree seem to be one of the US companies pushing GaN in a big way, including their pure-digital amps.

whalesalad 2y ago

Wild. I recall back in the early 2000's my dad was working at ITT Gilfilan (I think they are defunct now - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT-Gilfillan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT-Gilfillan) and the latest hotness was Gallium Arsenide radar technology. Pretty quickly it seems we leveled up to Gallium Nitride.

preisschild 2y ago
Yeah the latest and greatest radars (Raytheon AN/SPY-6) is using GaN instead of GaAs (like the older AN/SPY-1 did) too Really cool stuff
kjs3 2y ago
I always remember GaAs as the tech most responsible for killing the Cray-3/Cray-4.
venusenvy47 2y ago
GaN was already becoming popular in the early 2000's for high power RF amplifiers because they operate at higher supply voltages than GaAs. Cree (now Wolfspeed) and Nitronex were big names in GaN back then, with RFMD and TriQuint joining in soon after.

lysace 2y ago

> at its factory in Aizu, Japan. Which is great since it's not in China, which the world's democratic countries needs to work on uncoupling from since it's a) a totalitarian regime, b) part of the weird BRICS network. Remember that the R stands for Russia. We should aim to keep high-tech manufacturing in democratic countries. Automation is typically what makes this possible in new factories.

muxator 2y ago
With all its present and past limitations, Brazil is a democracy. I do not know India enough, but it is not a regime either.
- lysace 2y ago
  I did not claim the opposite. Although I do question the morality of partnering with Russia in 2024.
- varjag 2y ago
  It's worth remembering that the origin of BRICS was the Goldman Sachs portfolio for emerging markets. For some bizarre reason the term became loved by Western far left and then took a life of its own.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Yes, it is. Every government is a regime: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/regime https://www.dictionary.com/browse/regime The word frequently has a negative connotation, but that isn't strictly part of the definition.
saturn8601 2y ago
Whats your beef with BRICS? There should be competition in the world against the US dollar. It keeps the West more honest if there was someone nipping at their heels. Yeah its a mess backed by some unsavory countries but at least they are trying. Think about everything in your life. There is always at least 2-3 options. Why don't we really have that at a country level? We got the US, the rest of the west is essentially just vassal states for them and then we maybe got China but they may collapse before they amount to anything. Thats it.

dvh 2y ago

GaN diodes have higher voltage drop (1.4-1.7) than Schottky (0.3) or even normal diodes (0.7). How can they be more efficient?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
connicpu 2y ago
Probably not for the diode properties, but the transistor properties. I'm not an expert in this field, but some quick googling says GaN transistors (compared to silicon) have faster switching speeds and lower on-state resistance. I'm sure there's other tradeoffs, but those are great properties for high power, high frequency circuits.
magicalhippo 2y ago
Here's what ST says[1]: The very high electron mobility of GaN material allows devices with very low on-resistance and exceptionally high switching frequencies, which are key advantages in the design of next generation power systems, especially those for electric vehicles and renewable energy applications. Regarding the band gap[2]: It has a wide bandgap of 3.4 eV and an electron mobility of 1,700 cm2/Vs. Comparatively, Silicon sits at 1.1 eV and 1,400 cm2/Vs. GaN’s inherent properties thus result in a higher breakdown voltage and lower on-state resistance, which means that the component can more efficiently handle greater loads compared to a similar-sized silicon device, which then leads to a lower bill of materials. [1]: https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/about/innovation---technology/GaN.html https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/about/innovation---tech... [2]: https://blog.st.com/powergan/ https://blog.st.com/powergan/
londons_explore 2y ago
You aim for no current to ever flow through the diode. Any time current might flow through the diode, you should either switch on the transistor (so the same current flows through the channel), or switch some other transistor in your circuit to block the current (ie. a series transistor with source and drain switched).
adrian_b 2y ago

tester756 2y ago

Material science is where huge growth potential for semiconductors is available