Gallium nitride could replace silicon - Tougher and more energy efficient

By Sylvie Barak @ Wednesday, May 14, 2008 8:35 AM

Section - PCs/Chips

A doctorate student from Rensselaer polytechnic in New York, Weixiao Huang, has come up with a new transistor made from gallium nitride (GaN) which could eventually replace silicon transistors. GaN devices are more resilient at high temperatures and less power consuming.

Noting that although silicon had been the standard in the semiconductor for over twenty years, Huang said that “as power electronics get more sophisticated and require higher performing transistors, engineers have been seeking an alternative like gallium nitride-based transistors that can perform better than silicon and in extreme conditions.”

This led to Huang developing a brand new process, the first of its kind, with a GaN MOS (metal/oxide/GaN) interface, which Huang reckons has already outdone itself with stunning performance, integrating a plethora of functions on the same chip.

Huang’s GaN devices are definitely energy efficient, with Huang pointing out that “if these new GaN transistors replaced many existing silicon MOSFETs in power electronics systems, there would be global reduction in fossil fuel consumption and pollution”.

Not content to just invent one type of new transistor, Huang has also come up with a few other innovative high-voltage MOS-gated FETs which all seem to demonstrate superior performance to silicon MOSFET when it comes to using less power, being smaller in chip size, and having superior power density.

The new GaN transistors could at some point be used in things as diverse as hybrid cars to household electronics to military equipment. X

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