In papers presented at IEDM 2020, scientists from Université Grenoble-Alpes, CEA-Leti, STMicroelectronics gathered in Nanoelec/Powergan program, with colleagues of University of Padova (Italy) recounted experiments with variations of high-electron- mobility transistors (HEMT) based on gallium nitride-on-silicon. GaN-based semiconductors improve both performance and reliability of increasingly compact power converters compared to silicon, and AIGaN/GaN HEMTs have shown potential to replace power-conversion solutions based on Si or SiC for high-frequency applications with high power and low noise. This technology is therefore expected to be a cost-effective, power-conversion solution for many end-user applications, ranging from smartphones to kitchen appliances and e-vehicles and from battery loaders to DC/DC or AC/DC converters.
