Infineon Technologies AG has developed what it claims is the world’s first 300 mm gallium nitride (GaN) wafer technology.
Infineon said it is the first company to succeed in developing this technology in an existing and scalable high-volume manufacturing environment. The 300 mm GaN wafers will offer 2.3 times more chips per wafer than current 200 mm GaN wafers. And, maybe more importantly, offer cost parity with silicon-based semiconductors over time, the company said.
Over the past two years wide bandgap technologies, like GaN, have been instrumental in the adoption of emerging technologies in the industrial, automotive and consumer sectors. As a result, semiconductor companies globally have been increasing their semiconductor manufacturing of the devices to meet increased and planned demand.
GaN-based semiconductors lead to improved efficiency and power as well as:
- Performance
- Smaller size
- Lighter weight
- Overall Cost
Moving these devices to 300 mm wafer manufacturing will allow a more stable supply through scalability, Infineon said.
Integrated pilot line
Infineon manufactured the 300 mm GaN wafer on an integrated pilot line in existing 300 mm silicon production at its fab in Villach, Austria. Infineon said it plans to further scale GaN capacity aligned with market needs — something the company anticipates will be a several billion-dollar market by the end of the decade.
Infineon touts that the process was done using existing 300 mm silicon manufacturing equipment as GaAn and silicon are similar in their processes.
The company will demonstrate the first 300 mm GaN wafer at the upcoming Electronica 2024 trade show that takes place in Munich, Germany in November.
Why it matters
Currently, wide bandgap technology uses 200 mm wafers. Many companies have been upping their investment into wide bandgap technology — which includes GaN, silicon carbide (SiC) and more—to take advantage of their use in applications that are gaining traction, most notably electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy.
For the past two years, semiconductor vendors developing wide bandgap technologies have been rapidly expanding their future semiconductor manufacturing capacity in anticipation that these markets are only going to continue to grow. As a result, the wide bandgap market has seen considerable investments from all the major players to ensure future capacity or provide future capacity for use by automotive OEMs and energy companies.
This includes new semiconductor investments globally from Wolfspeed, onsemi, X-Fab, Texas Instruments, Nexperia, Renesas, Skyworks, STMicroelectronics, Entegris, pure-play foundry GlobalFoundries and more.
This is likely the beginning of the investment as these semiconductors continue to play a major role in future emerging technologies that will become a more permanent part of the global supply chain.
