Gallium nitride is irresistible

Recently, Samsung Electronics announced at the 2023 Samsung Foundry Forum held in South Korea that it will launch 8-inch gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductor foundry services for consumer electronics, data centers and automotive applications in 2025.

Gallium nitride, one of the leading wide-bandgap semiconductors, has recently begun to break out of its niche market with the continuous advancement of its technology and further development of its performance. It is no longer limited to the consumer electronics market, such as fast charging, but is now making inroads into rapidly developing sectors such as new energy vehicles, data centers, and renewable energy. Data indicates that the global market for gallium nitride power devices was valued at US$180 million in 2022 and is expected to reach US$1.33 billion by 2026, achieving a compound annual growth rate of 65%.

Source: Infineon

The competitiveness of "getting on board" continues to improve

As a mainstay of wide-bandgap semiconductors, GaN offers advantages such as high frequency, low loss, and strong radiation resistance, meeting the high efficiency, low energy consumption, and cost-effective requirements of various application scenarios. In recent years, continuous research by major research institutes and leading companies has led to optimization and improvement of GaN technology in terms of cost, yield, and stability.

In particular, the market share of GaN power devices has maintained steady growth in the automotive power device sector. Data indicates that the market size of GaN power devices is expected to reach $2 billion by 2027, compared to just $126 million in 2021. Electric vehicles will become the next growth point for GaN power devices, with a market size exceeding $227 million and a compound annual growth rate of 99%.

Data source: Yole

As a result, gallium nitride is increasingly favored by major automotive chip manufacturers. Recently, Samsung Electronics announced its entry into the gallium nitride market to meet automotive demand for power semiconductors, with plans to provide 8-inch gallium nitride wafer foundry services for automotive, consumer, and data center applications by 2025. Infineon Technologies announced its $830 million acquisition of GaN Systems, a gallium nitride power semiconductor manufacturer, to strengthen its gallium nitride product portfolio and accelerate its gallium nitride technology roadmap. Texas Instruments announced it will expand gallium nitride wafer production capacity at its Aizu plant in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.

As the rate at which gallium nitride is adopted continues to accelerate, its competitiveness continues to increase, and it has more advantages than silicon and silicon carbide at some voltage levels.

Sun Yi, Senior Vice President of Innoscience's Product Department, stated that at the 650V voltage level, GaN exhibits superior high-frequency characteristics compared to SiC, significantly increasing the power density of end products. Currently, the mainstream GaN is GaN-on-Si, which offers significant cost advantages over SiC. Therefore, at the 650V level, GaN offers significant advantages over SiC in both performance and cost.

Carlos Castro, Vice President of Nexperia, said: "Gallium nitride has higher efficiency, higher power density and lower system cost. Compared with silicon solutions, silicon carbide on-board chargers reduce costs by approximately 13%, while gallium nitride reduces system costs by 24%. It can also significantly shorten the charging time of new energy vehicles and reduce the size of the power conversion system."

An essential tool for energy conservation and emission reduction in data centers

In today's AI-fueled era, a vast number of data centers are needed for data storage and computing, resulting in enormous power consumption. Based on current estimates of data center electricity consumption, global data center energy consumption will reach 3,000 terawatt-hours by 2030, accounting for 10% of global electricity consumption. Data indicates that a 1% increase in the overall power efficiency of global data centers could save the equivalent of four 1-GWH nuclear power plants worldwide.

If gallium nitride MOSFETs are used instead of silicon MOSFETs in the PFC and high-voltage DC/DC parts of the server power supply in the data center, the power savings can reach more than 15T watts, which is worth more than one billion US dollars. It can also help data centers improve efficiency, reduce costs, significantly reduce electricity bills, and achieve carbon neutrality and carbon peak requirements.

Sun Yi stated that increasing the computing power of AI chips is also inseparable from improving their power supply power density and dynamic response. GaN can leverage its high-frequency characteristics to increase the operating frequency of the chip power supply module, thereby improving the power supply power density and dynamic response. Innoscience currently has a full-link GaN solution for AI servers. From the AC power supply to the bus power module and even to the CPU/GPU power supply, the GaN solution is used, which can improve the overall power conversion efficiency by more than 5%. The GaN-based data center power supply solution can significantly reduce the energy consumption of the power supply system, achieving energy conservation and emission reduction.

The penetration rate of GaN in data centers will continue to increase, and more and more power supply suppliers have already adopted GaN in their systems. Leading GaN companies such as Texas Instruments, Infineon, and Rohm have all announced their latest developments.

"Star Technology" in the Field of Fast Charging

Gallium nitride's true dominance lies in the fast charging and radio frequency fields. Due to its superior electrical properties, such as a high saturated electron drift rate and a high critical breakdown electric field, chargers using gallium nitride power chips offer significant advantages, including high switching speeds, high charging efficiency, rapid heat dissipation, and compact size. They are widely used in personal mobile charging devices such as mobile phones and laptops. Today, gallium nitride has been successfully incorporated into mobile phone power management.

Data shows that the application of gallium nitride has accelerated the development of the fast-charging charger market. Fast-charging penetration will rise to 24% in 2022, and the global market size will reach US$2.743 billion. The domestic gallium nitride charger market is expected to reach 5 billion yuan by 2026. With mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and Nubia entering the gallium nitride charger market, the market has entered an era of rapid development.

"At present, gallium nitride technology has become the 'star' in the field of consumer electronics charging," said Sun Yi.

Data source:Yole

In the RF field, Yole Développement data shows that the market size of GaN RF devices will grow from US$891 million in 2020 to US$2.4 billion in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 18%. Telecommunications infrastructure is the primary driving force for GaN RF devices. In addition to China, countries and regions such as Japan, South Korea, and the United States are also actively deploying 5G and 6G, and the GaN RF market is poised for explosive growth.

"5G communications will become the primary market application for GaN RF devices in the future," said Huang Junheng, Deputy General Manager of Hefei Core Valley Microelectronics Co., Ltd. GaN-on-SiC technology is currently the primary technology used in GaN RF devices, with some also using GaN-on-Si technology. Semi-insulating silicon carbide substrates are suitable for making RF GaN devices. Both 4-inch and 6-inch GaN epitaxial wafers on silicon carbide for GaN RF applications are available. Representative overseas 6-inch wafer manufacturers include Wolfspeed, Qorvo, and NXP, while Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. represents the leading 4-inch wafer manufacturer.

Of course, the application areas of gallium nitride are not limited to these. It has been widely used in LED driving, automotive lidar, battery formation, photovoltaic inverters and energy storage. In the future, more application directions of gallium nitride will be discovered, so let us wait and see.