Transphorm ships its quarter millionth GaN power device

Transphorm Inc of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, CA, USA — which designs and manufactures JEDEC- and AEC-Q101-qualified high-voltage (HV) gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs) for high-voltage power conversion applications — says it has shipped more than 250,000 high-voltage GaN FETs, manufactured at its wafer foundry in Aizu, Japan for mass-production applications.

Transphorm also says that the wafer foundry’s annual installed capacity base of 15 million parts of its 50mΩ product equivalent can easily scale to address 2-5x the volume. Further, when demand warrants it, the technology and manufacturing process can be structured to scale from the current 6-inch to 8-inch or potentially higher wafer diameters.

“2018 has been a game-changing year for high-voltage GaN,” says Transphorm’s co-founder & chief operating officer Primit Parikh. “More than 250,000 650V GaN FETs from Transphorm are deployed in our customers’ mass-production, high-performance power converter and inverter products. These products are available through various channels. Even Amazon,” he adds. “With our production volumes to date, we’re able to conservatively estimate more than 1.3 billion field hours of operation with a field FIT [failure in time] rate in the low single digits as well as over a billion hours of mean time before failure (MTBF) at operating conditions from an extensive suite of operating and accelerated reliability testing.”

Transphorm claims to be the first high-voltage GaN FET supplier to show field failure data from devices shipped. This data is used to calculate the field failure rate in parts per million (ppm) and failure in time (FIT), which shows the technology’s reliability. Availability of field data is an important new phase for high-voltage GaN in power systems, as it indicates a maturing technology, says the firm.

Market research and strategy consulting firm Yole Développement forecasts (in an aggressive scenario) in its report ‘Power GaN 2018: Epitaxy, Devices, Applications and Technology Trends’ that the power GaN market will rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 91% to $408m in 2023. The high-voltage applications slated to drive that growth include fast chargers, data centers and other high-end power supplies.

Supporting that research, Transphorm’s in-production customers cross the Yole-referenced growth segments and others, including PC gaming power supplies (CORSAIR), server power supplies (Bel Power, Delta), servo drives (Yaskawa), and portable power (Inergy/Telcodium). Also, notably, 2018 saw major steps forward in GaN’s commercialization with Nexperia’s plans to release 600V+ GaN FETs and Infineon’s introduction of its 600V portfolio.

“The pivotal benchmarks of any new technology’s market acceptance are adoption by leading customers in key market segments and the emergence of multiple, strong suppliers capable of supporting ensuing high-volume ramps,” says Transphorm’s CEO Mario Rivas. “While we are very pleased with what Transphorm has achieved in partnership with our customers, we are even more excited to see high-voltage power semiconductor leaders like Nexperia and Infineon join the GaN revolution,” he adds. “Customers can now reap the benefits of energy-saving GaN with increased confidence in its suppliers.”

Tags: Transphorm GaN-on-Si GaN HEMT Power electronics

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