Following the inauguration of Europe’s first 150mm GaN production line at OMMIC, EpiGaN and OMMIC today announced their partnership for GaN/Si epiwafers supply for RF power products aiming at future 5G wireless communication.
EpiGaN is a global supplier of GaN-on-Si and GaN-on-SiC material solutions for advanced electronic products, and OMMIC, is a key provider of compound semiconductor MMICs and foundry services. They are collaborating to develop RF GaN/Si technology on 150-mm diameter wafers. They have jointly collaborated on establishing a production process based on EpiGaN’s differentiating GaN/Si material technology with in-situ grown SiN passivation. They will cooperate directly to move this technology to 150-mm diameter wafers, targeting future 5G wireless communication standards, for which OMMIC last week announced a large project with a 5G equipment supplier.
The advent of the 5G era is going to revolutionize long-distance communications. To provide users with exceptionally high-speed wireless connections, ultra-low latency and enhanced mobile broadband, a new semiconductor technology – GaN – is required in applications such as multimedia streaming, autonomous driving, machine-to-machine communication with billions of interconnected sensors or Internet-of-Things, to transmit and receive RF signals in the utmost efficient way.
The next-generation 5G standard will require GaN as an enabling semiconductor technology to provide a step-up in performance. EpiGaN offers many attractive USPs for RF power, which add value to device designers, such as in-situ SiN passivation for enhanced device robustness, or very low RF losses up to 100 GHz. The high-frequency capability of their material, will enable cost-efficient and energy-efficient GaN technology for the higher frequency bands targeted by 5G.
This partnership will enable OMMIC to meet the required volume and quality levels for our 5G GaN MMICs.
