EpiGaN nv of Hasselt, near Antwerp, Belgium, which supplies commercial-grade 150mm- and 200mm-diameter gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) epitaxial wafers, says that on 7 June it received official notification from the International Organization for Standardization that its production facility is now fully certified to the quality management system ISO9001:2015.
Incorporated in 2010, EpiGaN was founded by chief executive officer Dr Marianne Germain, chief technology officer Dr Joff Derluyn and chief operating officer Dr Stefan Degroote as a spin-off of nanoelectronics research center Imec of Leuven, Belgium. The founders jointly developed GaN-on-Si technology at Imec, part of which has been licensed to EpiGaN.
In 2011, EpiGaN was joined by start-up investment firms Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Capricorn CleanTech Fund and LRM to enable the installation of its wafer production facility. In June, Beijing/Brussels-based Euro-Asia private equity fund A Capital joined the initial investors to fund expansion of EpiGaN's sales and support base to Asian markets. EpiGaN is now undertaking volume production and wafer characterization at its Research Campus Hasselt in the Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen high-tech triangle. In January, the firm signed a global representation agreement for its 150mm and 200mm GaN-on-Si power semiconductor product solutions with silicon substrate maker SunEdison Semiconductor of St. Peters, MO, USA.
EpiGaN now delivers GaN-on-Si and GaN-on-SiC epiwafers to device makers worldwide for power switching, RF millimeter-wave power and sensor applications, specifically shipping epitaxial (Al,Ga)N heterostructures grown on silicon substrates up to 200mm in diameter. In particular, EpiGaN is producing GaN structures on Si substrates up to 200mm diameter at the 600V node to enable its customers to position themselves in rapidly growing market segments.
ISO9001:2015 certification "reassures our commercial customers and institutional program partners on a global scale of our unwavering commitment to the professional quality management of our wafer deliveries," says Germain. "It proves that EpiGaN is a well-established entity in its field," she adds. "There are not many organizations that are certified to the new updated version of the standard."
The full range of quality management measures according to ISO9001 has been in place internally at EpiGaN's Hasselt campus since 2012. "The EpiGaN quality management system has grown up together with the company: all the prescribed standardization procedures had been installed, documented and maintained according to the ISO9001 requirements," notes Domenica Visalli Ph.D., GaN project engineer & quality manager. "The formal application procedure for ISO9001:2015 was launched in January 2016 and we received the final notification within the usual time frame on 7 June."
