421 research outputs found
The 2018 GaN power electronics roadmap
GaN is a compound semiconductor that has a tremendous potential to facilitate economic growth in
a semiconductor industry that is silicon-based and currently faced with diminishing returns of
performance versus cost of investment. At a material level, its high electric field strength and
electron mobility have already shown tremendous potential for high frequency communications and
photonic applications. Advances in growth on commercially viable large area substrates are now at
the point where power conversion applications of GaN are at the cusp of commercialisation. The
future for building on the work described here in ways driven by specific challenges emerging from
entirely new markets and applications is very exciting. This collection of GaN technology
developments is therefore not itself a road map but a valuable collection of global state-of-the-art
GaN research that will inform the next phase of the technology as market driven requirements
evolve. First generation production devices are igniting large new markets and applications that can
only be achieved using the advantages of higher speed, low specific resistivity and low saturation
switching transistors. Major investments are being made by industrial companies in a wide variety of
markets exploring the use of the technology in new circuit topologies, packaging solutions and
system architectures that are required to achieve and optimise the system advantages offered by
GaN transistors. It is this momentum that will drive priorities for the next stages of device research
gathered here
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