• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Infineon Announces World's First 300 mm Power Gallium Nitride (GaN) Technology

Nomad76

News Editor
Staff member
Joined
May 21, 2024
Messages
735 (3.42/day)
Infineon Technologies AG today announced that the company has succeeded in developing the world's first 300 mm power gallium nitride (GaN) wafer technology. Infineon is the first company in the world to master this groundbreaking technology in an existing and scalable high-volume manufacturing environment. The breakthrough will help substantially drive the market for GaN-based power semiconductors. Chip production on 300 mm wafers is technologically more advanced and significantly more efficient compared to 200 mm wafers, since the bigger wafer diameter offers 2.3 times more chips per wafer.

GaN-based power semiconductors find fast adoption in industrial, automotive, and consumer, computing & communication applications, including power supplies for AI systems, solar inverters, chargers and adapters, and motor-control systems. State-of-the art GaN manufacturing processes lead to improved device performance resulting in benefits in end customers' applications as it enables efficiency performance, smaller size, lighter weight, and lower overall cost. Furthermore, 300 mm manufacturing ensures superior customer supply stability through scalability.





"This remarkable success is the result of our innovative strength and the dedicated work of our global team to demonstrate our position as the innovation leader in GaN and power systems," said Jochen Hanebeck, CEO of Infineon Technologies AG. "The technological breakthrough will be an industry game-changer and enable us to unlock the full potential of gallium nitride. Nearly one year after the acquisition of GaN Systems, we are demonstrating again that we are determined to be a leader in the fast-growing GaN market. As a leader in power systems, Infineon is mastering all three relevant materials: silicon, silicon carbide and gallium nitride."

Infineon has succeeded in manufacturing 300 mm GaN wafers on an integrated pilot line in existing 300 mm silicon production in its power fab in Villach (Austria). The company is leveraging well-established competence in the existing production of 300 mm silicon and 200 mm GaN. Infineon will further scale GaN capacity aligned with market needs. 300 mm GaN manufacturing will put Infineon in a position to shape the growing GaN market which is estimated to reach several billion US-Dollars by the end of the decade.

This pioneering technological success underlines Infineon's position as a global semiconductor leader in power systems and IoT. Infineon is implementing 300 mm GaN to strengthen existing and enabling new solutions and application fields with an increasingly cost-effective value proposition and the ability to address the full range of customer systems. Infineon will present the first 300 mm GaN wafers to the public at the electronica trade show in November 2024 in Munich.

A significant advantage of 300 mm GaN technology is that it can utilize existing 300 mm silicon manufacturing equipment, since gallium nitride and silicon are very similar in manufacturing processes. Infineon's existing high-volume silicon 300 mm production lines are ideal to pilot reliable GaN technology, allowing accelerated implementation and efficient use of capital. Fully scaled 300 mm GaN production will contribute to GaN cost parity with silicon on R DS(on) level, which means cost parity for comparable Si and GaN products.

300 mm GaN is another milestone in Infineon's strategic innovation leadership and supports Infineon's mission of decarbonization and digitalization.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 
Joined
Mar 11, 2008
Messages
982 (0.16/day)
Location
Hungary / Budapest
System Name Kincsem
Processor AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
Motherboard ASUS ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI
Cooling Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 5
Memory Kingston Fury KF560C32RSK2-96 (2×48GB 6GHz)
Video Card(s) Sapphire AMD RX 7900 XT Pulse
Storage Samsung 970PRO 500GB + Samsung 980PRO 2TB + FURY Renegade 2TB+ Adata 2TB + WD Ultrastar HC550 16TB
Display(s) Acer QHD 27"@144Hz 1ms + UHD 27"@60Hz
Case Cooler Master CM 690 III
Power Supply Seasonic 1300W 80+ Gold Prime
Mouse Logitech G502 Hero
Keyboard HyperX Alloy Elite RGB
Software Windows 10-64
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/9qw7iq https://valid.x86.fr/4d8n02 X570 https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/g46uc
Sounds cool, hope it will bring down the prices! :peace:
 
Joined
Aug 13, 2010
Messages
5,479 (1.04/day)
People may not yet realize / understand how significant this achievement is. This is serious stuff.
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2016
Messages
2,508 (0.78/day)
1st
Buzz Lightyear To Infinity And Beyond GIF
 
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Messages
2,393 (1.52/day)
Location
Bulgaria
People may not yet realize / understand how significant this achievement is. This is serious stuff.
...the described wafers are used to make chips for consumer electronics...IoT washing machines and refrigerators. It still has a long way to go before it takes off and replaces silicon in the PC, workstation and HPC sectors.
 
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
21,541 (3.40/day)
System Name Pioneer
Processor Ryzen R9 9950X
Motherboard GIGABYTE Aorus Elite X670 AX
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 + A whole lotta Sunon and Corsair Maglev blower fans...
Memory 64GB (4x 16GB) G.Skill Flare X5 @ DDR5-6000 CL30
Video Card(s) XFX RX 7900 XTX Speedster Merc 310
Storage Intel 905p Optane 960GB boot, +2x Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs
Display(s) 55" LG 55" B9 OLED 4K Display
Case Thermaltake Core X31
Audio Device(s) TOSLINK->Schiit Modi MB->Asgard 2 DAC Amp->AKG Pro K712 Headphones or HDMI->B9 OLED
Power Supply FSP Hydro Ti Pro 850W
Mouse Logitech G305 Lightspeed Wireless
Keyboard WASD Code v3 with Cherry Green keyswitches + PBT DS keycaps
Software Gentoo Linux x64 / Windows 11 Enterprise IoT 2024
...the described wafers are used to make chips for consumer electronics...IoT washing machines and refrigerators. It still has a long way to go before it takes off and replaces silicon in the PC, workstation and HPC sectors.
yes, but you have to start somewhere.
 
Joined
May 3, 2018
Messages
2,881 (1.19/day)
...the described wafers are used to make chips for consumer electronics...IoT washing machines and refrigerators. It still has a long way to go before it takes off and replaces silicon in the PC, workstation and HPC sectors.
You're thinking of the never coming GaAs - Gallium Arsenide. GaN is not ever going to replace silicon.
 
Joined
May 25, 2009
Messages
240 (0.04/day)
Processor AMD R5 7600X
Motherboard Asrock X670E Pro RS
Cooling Noctua NH-15S
Memory 2*16 GB 5600 CL34
Video Card(s) XFX 6800XT 319 Merc
Storage Samsung 970 Evo
Power Supply Super Flower 850 Gold
Mouse Steelseries 310
Out of curiosity, what would be the equivalent specs for Silicone? For density, frequency and volts? Early 300 mm, so 90nm, or something closer to mature nodes like 32/28nm, or even a mix - 45nm density, with 22nm performance and 32nm VDD?
 

NoLoihi

New Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2024
Messages
15 (0.15/day)
GaN is typically used for its higher efficiency, isn't it? So if they’re the same price as silicon for the same RDS(on), it means you get less device for it, though switching losses may be lower and still make it worthile for power supplies, do I see this right?
For the lazy ones who didn't know what this is about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_nitride#Transistors_and_power_ICs (Too lazy myself to dig out introductory articles.)
 
Top