Pervasive Manufacturing Infrastructure of GaN (>20A/>600V) Qualified Electric Device Vehicle Power Electronics

The efficiencies of Electric Vehicle EV and Hybrid Electric Vehicle HEV need to be improved in order to reduce reliance on hydrocarbon fuelbased transportation systems and thus reduce CO2 emissions. For this to happen, high voltage power electronics need to be improved in terms of performance and cost. Currently, vehicle power electronics utilize silicon Si power semiconductor switching technology based on MOSFETs and IGBTs; however, low band gap Si is temperature limited and cannot handle high power, whereas wide bandgap semiconductors, such as silicon carbide SiC and gallium nitride GaN, are much more suited for higher power higher temperature operation. GaN is accepted as an ideal solution for <900 Volt operation as needed for automotive applications, excepting current GaN based systems have low yield and low performance due to nonuniformity in the material quality on large area economical foreign Si, sapphire substrates ≥4 inch. Even so, GaN is more manufacturable than SiC. The issues related to the economical production of uniform high quality GaN device materials on large area substrates ≥4 inches are being addressed by designing tools to grow desired devices on large area substrates and by developing the efficient power devices delivering the desired high currents >20A and high voltages >600V. In Phase I 800V 0.5A/mm scaling path to >20A output devices were demonstrated, and Phase II process and tooling milestones were defined to meet project objectives; including: hardware improvement solutions, determined materials quality improvement and scale up device design solutions. The Phase II program effort will be to improve and scaleup the development of the IIIN materials on large area substrates by using a superior function MOCVD system. Further, high voltage high current ≥600V/20A power devices will be designed, developed and sampled for commercial sales. The GaN devices are required for EVs and EHVs, telecommunications, industrial, automotive, renewables, consumer and enterprise, military, defense, and aerospace and medical applications. The GaN devices have broad commercial applications for making efficient SMPS Consumer chargers & adapters, HEV, EV chargers & battery management, Cleantech solar, battery chargers, UPS, motor control, small electric mobility systems bikes, scooters, skateboards or other similar systems, wireless power transmission, and audio amplifications, among many other applications. The advanced MOCVD tooling supports several material/device fields.