Date: 20/12/2010

New semiconductor material key to boosting speed and cutting power consumption

While researchers are trying out the best to extend the Silicon to operate in high speed and at low power, there is a limitation prompting semiconductor material researchers to look into other compound semiconductor materials such as silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si), GaN, and GaAs. The combination of elements are used so that its energy-band levels support fast switching at the PN junction and also less Forward voltage drop.

Now the research in semiconductor industry is not more about nano meter race but is about software design automation, new compound semiconductor materials, and stacking the devices in 3 dimensional packages. All these are quite challenging but if successful highly rewarding for the innovating company.

The lead in this direction is from U.S. and European researchers. In Europe AIXTRON, AZZURRO Semiconductors, MicroGaN, Infineon Technologies, SiCrystal, SMA Solar Technology are joining forces in the NEULAND project funded by the Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). NEULAND stands for innovative power devices with high energy efficiency and cost effectiveness based on wide bandgap compound semiconductors.
The project objective is to cut the power losses by 50% in solar PV inverters while feeding the generated power to grid but without significantly increasing system costs. The idea is to replace Silicon with innovative semiconductor devices based on silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si).

The same devices can also be used in future in switched-mode power supplies for desktop and laptop PCs, for flat-screen TVs, servers and telecommunication systems with a view to likewise reducing energy losses in these applications by about half.

Infineon to head NEULAND project, which will run until mid-2013 and the project will receive funding at 52.6 percent to the tune of approximately Euro 4.7 million from the BMBF under the Federal Government's High-Tech Strategy ("Information and Communications Technology 2020", ICT 2020 program) as part of the call for proposals on "Power Electronics for Energy Efficiency Enhancement".