GaN Power Device Industry: The Supply Chain is Acting to Support Market Growth

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“The GaN power market remains small compared to the $30 billion silicon power semiconductor market”, asserts Dr. Hong Lin, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole Développement (Yole). “However, it has an enormous potential in the short term due to its suitability for high performance and high frequency solutions.”

The GaN power business was worth about US$12 million in 2016, but at Yole, analysts project that the market will reach US$460 million by 2022, with an impressive 79% CAGR . Amongst the numerous applications, the market research company mentions Lidar, wireless power and envelope tracking. They are high-end low/medium voltage applications. Today GaN technology is the only existing solution to meet their specific requirements. 

Although today only a few players are showing commercial GaN activities, many firms have GaN activities. Therefore, the power GaN supply chain prepares for production. During the 2016-2017 period, Yole’s analysts identified lot of investments that are clearly supporting development and implementation of GaN devices. 

Yole differentiates GaN power supply chain into two main models: IDM and foundry. Both models will co-exist while there are different needs on the market, for example in consumer and industrial applications, explain Yole’s analysts in the Power GaN report.

GaN manufacturers continue developing new products and provide samples to costumers, as is the case with EPC and its wireless charging line. Indeed EPC is still the current market leader today. Other players including GaN systems sell also low voltage GaN transistors.“The business model is directly linked to the final application.

Today, many questions related to the chip’s integration and to the system’s interface are still pending. And they condition the business relationship between the GaN companies”.

(Dr. Ana Villamor, Technology & Market Analyst, Yole Développement)

System Plus Consulting, part of Yole Group of Companies, reveals a detailed comparison of GaN-on-Silicon transistors in its new report, GaN-on-Silicon Transistor Comparison. The company analyzes the existing GaN-on-Silicon offers. This overview is the state of the art of GaN-on-Silicon HEMT. Indeed it highlights the differences between the design and manufacturing processes, the impacts at epitaxy, device and packaging level and related production costs. Devices analyzed by System Plus Consulting have been developed by the leading companies: EPC, Texas Instruments, Panasonic, GaN Systems and Transphorm. 

“The current GaN device market is mainly dominated by devices <200V. 600V devices are expected to take off and keep growing. But the <200V market share will increase again when GaN begins to replace MOSFETs in different applications and enables new applications,” comments Dr. Elena Barbarini, Project Manager, Power Electronics and Compound Semiconductors at System Plus Consulting. And she adds: “GaN-on-Silicon has been a promising solution since the very beginning as its potential of CMOS compatibility and reduced cost”. 

Both companies Yole and System Plus Consulting will attend a selection of key conferences during the next months. 

At CS International, Dr. Hong Lin will present the latest results focused on the GaN industry. She will describe the GaN-on-Silicon landscape including power electronics, RF and lighting market segments. "GaN on Si Market and industry development" presentation will take place on April 10 at 3:35 PM. During the conference, Yole also proposes another presentation focused on the microLED technologies. More information on i-micronews.com. 

In addition, Dr. Elena Barbarini will attend ISPSD, PCIM Europe and SCAPE. For more information about this program, please contact Fanny Vitrey, Marketing & Communication Assistant at Yole. Full description of both reports, Power GaN and GaN-on-Silicon Transistor Comparison are available respectively on i-micronews.com and System Plus Consulting website.