Coming: Gallium nitride inverters

At the recently completed International Electron Devices Meeting in Baltimore, Panasonic Corp. described the development of a Gallium Nitride monolithic inverter IC designed for use in motor drives. The device contains six GaN-based transistors which can be independently driven.

The chip uses proprietary Gate Injection (GITs) with a claim to fame of low on-state resistance and high breakdown voltage. Iron ion implantation gives the devices a breakdown voltage between transistors of around 900 V which is stable even after a high-temperature fabrication process hits temperatures of over 800ºC.

The IC is fabricated on an inexpensive Si substrate and the epitaxial structure is grown by metal organic (MOCVD) with special fetures that fully relax the strain in the film caused by the lattice and thermal mismatches between GaN and Si.

The conversion loss is effectively 42% less than that from a conventional Si-based IGBT at an output power of 20 W. The integration also reduces parasitic inductance and hence switching loss. Applications for 141 domestic and 90 overseas patents have been filed.

The program notation for the IEDM paper can be found here: