In booth J2554 of its local agent APEC at the SEMICON Taiwan show in Taipei (5-7 September) and in booth 354 at European Microwave Week (EuMW 2018) in Madrid, Spain (23-28 September), EpiGaN nv of Hasselt, near Antwerp, Belgium - which supplies gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) and gallium nitride on silicon carbide (GaN-on-SiC) epitaxial wafers for power switching, RF and sensor applications – is highlighting its latest GaN epiwafer developments tailored to 5G applications.
As well as enabling smaller, lighter and higher-performance systems with added functionality for power conversion and sensor applications, GaN is being readied to enable key features of new-standard 5G cellular wireless networks, which require exceptionally high-speed connections for multimedia streaming, virtual reality, M2M or autonomous driving applications.
For 5G, EpiGaN has released large-diameter versions of its HVRF (high-voltage radio frequency) GaN-on-Si as well as GaN-on-SiC epiwafer product families. Customers can choose from various optimized top structures to best serve their specific RF device needs – AlGaN, AlN or InAlN barriers combined with GaN or in-situ SiN caps – on silicon substrates up to 200mm and on SiC up to 150mm diameter. EpiGaN claims that its HVRF products enable excellent dynamic behavior, the highest power densities at mmW frequencies and the lowest RF losses (<0.8dB/mm up to 110GHz).
For ultimate RF performance in the 30GHz and 40GHz millimeter-wave bands assigned to 5G, EpiGaN has developed high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) heterostructures featuring ultra-thin AlN barrier layers in combination with an in-situ SiN capping layer. These allow the transistor’s gate to be located very close to the densely populated channel, maximizing the electrostatic coupling between the two. This results in far superior RF transistor characteristics, as needed for 5G MMIC developments. HEMT structures with lattice-matched InAlN barriers exhibit sheet resistivities below 250 Ohm/sq and enable the highest transistor current densities.
“We are noticing an increasing demand in the market for our RF GaN product solutions optimized for 5G systems,” says co-founder & CEO Dr Marianne Germain. “EpiGaN is proud to offer an exceptionally broad portfolio of RF GaN epiwafer products that enables our global customer base to develop differentiated 5G cellular network solutions with industry-leading performance.”
