Series 8 – Episode 4 – GaN technology and its rapidly growing range of applications

Innoscience Europe is a branch of Innoscience, the largest 8-inch Integrated Device Manufacture (IDM) fully focused on GaN technology.

Gallium Nitride (GaN) is a wide bandgap material – it can handle higher voltages for a given piece of material and therefore you can have lower-on resistance as well as switch faster and more efficiently when compared to silicon.

Marcon believes that all applications can benefit from GaN technology: “Basically, with GaN, you can shrink the size of the power convertor, making it more efficient. I think this is fundamental of any power conversion system that you have.” Marcon has seen a new trend with people looking at GaN as a replacement for Silicone because of the material’s current scarcity. In exchange, they get the benefits of GaN!

GaN technology can also help to reduce carbon emissions. Taking a data centre as an example, Marcon explains: “If we would just replace the Silicon technology with GaN technology, you will save approximately 10% in the bill that you need to run the data centre.

“More importantly, according to the data I found on the Internet, you can save an equivalent of 20 nuclear reactors by 2030, just by replacing a small component and increasing efficiency.”

Marcon goes on to speak about the GaN technology offered by Innoscience, why GaN is not being impacted by the current chip shortage and what the future holds for the advanced material.

To hear more about Innoscience and much more, you can listen to Electronic Specifier’s interview with Denis Marcon on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.