94 research outputs found
Wide Bandgap Based Devices
Emerging wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors hold the potential to advance the global industry in the same way that, more than 50 years ago, the invention of the silicon (Si) chip enabled the modern computer era. SiC- and GaN-based devices are starting to become more commercially available. Smaller, faster, and more efficient than their counterpart Si-based components, these WBG devices also offer greater expected reliability in tougher operating conditions. Furthermore, in this frame, a new class of microelectronic-grade semiconducting materials that have an even larger bandgap than the previously established wide bandgap semiconductors, such as GaN and SiC, have been created, and are thus referred to as “ultra-wide bandgap” materials. These materials, which include AlGaN, AlN, diamond, Ga2O3, and BN, offer theoretically superior properties, including a higher critical breakdown field, higher temperature operation, and potentially higher radiation tolerance. These attributes, in turn, make it possible to use revolutionary new devices for extreme environments, such as high-efficiency power transistors, because of the improved Baliga figure of merit, ultra-high voltage pulsed power switches, high-efficiency UV-LEDs, and electronics. This Special Issue aims to collect high quality research papers, short communications, and review articles that focus on wide bandgap device design, fabrication, and advanced characterization. The Special Issue will also publish selected papers from the 43rd Workshop on Compound Semiconductor Devices and Integrated Circuits, held in France (WOCSDICE 2019), which brings together scientists and engineers working in the area of III–V, and other compound semiconductor devices and integrated circuits
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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