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TAP TIMES April 2022

Volume 13, Number 4

Test, Assembly & Packaging TIMES

Will GaN compete with silicon for high-frequency and power apps?

or over 75 years since the As shown in the
invention of the germanium Periodic Table
point contact transistor by of the Elements
Bell Laboratories in 1947, (p. 6), creating
semiconductor technology alloys of one or
F has seen amazing progress more elements
and has changed, advanced and even in columns
revolutionized the way mankind lives. Group III (B,
Al, Ga, In) and
Different drivers Group V (N, P,
Breaking down this technology in As) or Group IV
three twenty-five-year periods, we can see (Si, Ge) produc-
different drivers which financed the R&D es a compound
and development of new wide bandgap semiconduc- John Bardeen and Walter Brattain
materials such as gallium nitride (GaN). tor. next page build the first point contact transistor
(See brief history below). on a germanium crystal.
Phase II (1973-1998) Start of Compound Semiconductors
Tom Terlizzi
Contributing Editor  AlGaAs/GaAs 2-D electron gas layer developed – 1978
 GaAs pHEMTs and HBTs – 1983
 Silicon Germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar transis-
Phase I (1947-1972) Germanium to Silicon to new materials tor (HBT) commercially available in 1992
 Silicon Carbide (SiC) bulk growth and GaN epitaxial growth
 December 16, 1947 - John Bardeen and Walter Brattain late 1980” s
build the first point contact transistor on a  DARPA Microwave/Millimeter Wave Monolithic Integrated
germanium crystal (see next page). On June 30,1948 Bell Circuits (MIMIC) Program – 1989 to 1995
Labs holds a press conference to announce the  1991-1992 A method for producing higher brightness blue
invention shortly after the patent was filed. LEDs was patented.
 Silicon bipolar transistors commercially available ~1954  First AlGaN/GaN HEMT – 1993
 “Space Race” begins on October 4, 1957, when the  SiC power devices commercially available 1995
Soviet Union launched Sputnik satellite. This creates  Department Of Energy R&D for efficient lighting and
the need for miniaturization and usage of semiconductors power starts in 1992 using wide bandgap materials
 Silicon Integrated circuit invented ~ 1958 Jack Kilby,
Texas Instruments Phase III (1998-2022) Wide Bandgap Materials Evolve
 1959 M. M. (John) Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell
Labs achieved the first successful insulated-gate field-  Office Naval Research and DARPA heavily invest in GaN for
effect transistor (MOSFET) 1 RF power and MMICs – 2000 forward
 The red-light emitting diode (LED) was invented by GE  In 2005, Eudyna (now Sumitomo Electric Device Innovations
engineer Nick Holonyak, Jr (“Father if the LED”). USA, Inc., (SEDU)) was able to produce
(One of the first compound semiconductors devices using record power gain in the gigahertz frequency range using to
gallium phosphide (GaP) and gallium arsenide GaN grown on SiC substrates.
(GaAs). ~1962)  In 2009, Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC) intro-
 In 1962, Robert Hall of G.E. invented the first laser diode duced the first enhancement-mode GaN on
device from gallium arsenide, and emitted in the silicon (eGaN®) field effect power transistors (MOSFETs)
near-infrared band of the spectrum at 850 nm 4  Low-cost, efficient LED lighting commercially available –
 GaAs RF Mesfets late 1960’s 2010 using GaN
 First epitaxial growth of GaN – 1968  2018 MACOM and STMicroelectronics create a joint venture
 In 1971-1972 Intel develops the 4-Bit Microcomputer 4004 to Bring GaN on Silicon to Mainstream RF
into a low-cost 16-pin package and the 8-bit Markets
8008 device starts the “Computer in a chip” revolution  March 2022, Navitas has shipped 35,000,000 gallium