Coupled with its existing GaN manufacturing in Dallas, Texas, TI will now be able to internally manufacture four times more GaN-based power semiconductors, as Aizu ramps to production.
"Building on our expertise in GaN chip design and manufacturing, we have successfully qualified our 200mm GaN technology – the most scalable and cost-competitive way to manufacture GaN today – to start mass production in Aizu," said Mohammad Yunus, TI's senior vice president of Technology and Manufacturing. "This enables us to manufacture more of our GaN chips internally as we grow our internal manufacturing to more than 95% by 2030, while also sourcing from multiple TI locations, ensuring a reliable supply of our entire GaN portfolio of high-power, energy-efficient semiconductors."
GaN is a semiconductor material that offers benefits in energy-efficiency, switching speed, power solution size and weight, overall system cost, and performance under high temperatures and high-voltage conditions when compared to silicon.
It can provide more power density, or power in smaller spaces, enabling applications such as power adapters for laptops and mobile phones, or smaller, more energy-efficient motors for heating and air conditioning systems and home appliances.
Currently TI offers a wide portfolio of integrated GaN-based power semiconductors, ranging from low- to high-voltage, to enable the most energy-efficient, reliable and power-dense electronics.
"With GaN, TI can now deliver more power, more efficiently in a compact space, which is the primary market need driving innovation for many of our customers," said Kannan Soundarapandian, vice president of High-Voltage Power at TI. "As designers of systems such as server power, solar energy generation and AC/DC adapters face challenges to reduce power consumption and enhance energy efficiency, they are increasingly demanding a reliable supply of TI's GaN-based chips."
This new capacity will enable increased product performance and manufacturing process efficiency, as well as a cost advantage, according to TI. Also, the more advanced tools used in the company’s expanded GaN manufacturing can produce smaller chips. This design innovation can be manufactured using less water, energy and raw materials – providing significant environmental benefits.
The performance benefits of TI's increased GaN manufacturing capabilities will also enable the company to scale its GaN chips to higher voltages, starting with 900V and increasing to higher voltages over time, furthering power-efficiency and size innovations for applications like robotics, renewable energy and server power supplies.
TI's expanded investment also includes a successful pilot earlier this year for development of GaN manufacturing processes on 300mm wafers.
Further, TI's expanded GaN manufacturing processes are fully transferable to 300mm technology, positioning the company to readily scale to customer needs and move to 300mm in the future.
