News

10 December 2009

 

Panasonic develops first single-chip GaN inverter IC for motor drives

At this week’s IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM 2009) in Baltimore, MD, USA, Panasonic of Osaka, Japan announced what it claims is the first demonstration of a single-chip gallium nitride (GaN)-based inverter integrated circuit (IC) for motor drives.

The six GaN-based transistors can be driven independently, yielding a high-efficiency motor drive. The new GaN inverter IC is applicable to motor drives in a variety of consumer electronics applications, says the firm.

Figure: Panasonic’s GaN inverter IC, which integrates six gate injection transistors.

Panasonic’s integration of its proprietary gate injection transistors into a single chip takes advantages of the lateral device configuration. The gate injection transistor serves normally-off operation with low on-state resistance and a high breakdown voltage. Independent operation of each gate injection transistor is possible through planar isolation by using iron (Fe) ion implantation, maintaining a high breakdown voltage of about 900V between each transistor, which is stable even after high-temperature fabrication processing at more than 800ºC.

Also, the GaN IC is fabricated on a cost-effective large-diameter silicon substrate. Using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), the epitaxial structure is grown with a novel buffer structures that fully relaxes the strain in the film caused by the lattice and thermal mismatches between GaN and silicon.

Panasonic says that using the new GaN-based monolithic inverter IC in a motor drive has confirmed that conversion loss is effectively reduced by 42% from that of a conventional silicon-based insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) at an output power of 20W. On-state loss is reduced, free from the off-set voltage in forward bias that is seen in a conventional IGBT. Integration of the GaN-based transistors also reduces parasitic inductance, so that switching loss is effectively reduced.

Panasonic says that it has filed applications for 141 domestic and 90 overseas patents on the technology.

See article: Wide load potential for electric vehicles

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Visit: http://panasonic.co.jp