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Soitec’s GaN-on-Insulator Substrate Claims LED, RF Performance Gains
Online staff -- Electronic News, 3/2/2005
Bernin, France-based Soitec Group Tuesday detailed a single-crystal, thin-film gallium nitride (GaN)-on-insulator substrate that the company said represents a step forward the development of high-performance blue and white light-emitting diodes (LED), and improves performance of radio-frequency (RF) and discrete power applications.
Leveraging its Smart Cut layer-transfer and wafer-bonding technology, the Soitec technology was the result of collaboration with Picogiga International, a Soitec Group division focused on the development and manufacture of compound semiconductor material solutions.
The work was completed at the Smart Cut Enabling Application Laboratory (SCEALAB), a joint R&D program between the Soitec Group and French research consortium, CEA-Leti, established to develop new composite substrates.
Soitec said its research team used the Smart Cut technology to split and transfer a thin layer of GaN from a high-quality GaN donor wafer onto a carrier wafer thereby generating a single crystal GaN-on-insulator substrate.
“This GaN capability is a part of our roadmap strategy to develop and supply advanced engineered substrates for compound semiconductors for a variety of applications,” said Jean-Luc Ledys, COO at Picogiga, in a statement.
Other substrates under development include silicon-on-polysilicon carbide, silicon carbide-on-insulator and silicon carbide-on-polysilicon carbide.
The GaN development process is based on growing epitaxial layers of GaN on bulk substrates, such as silicon, silicon carbide and sapphire. RF power devices and high-volume market blue and white LEDs will experience technical limitations in terms of power or brightness that require new technology solutions, Soitec explained.
By creating GaN-on-insulator substrates with high-quality GaN topsides, Soitec believes performance of the active epitaxial GaN layers can be improved. Smart Cut is meant to provide the capability to optimize the substrate’s mechanical and thermal properties, independent of the topside active layer, and is therefore the best suited to become the industrial standard for cost effective, volume manufacturing of GaN-based wafers, the company added.
“This research was performed in very close collaboration with our III-Vs material division, Picogiga International, whose plans to industrialize the new technology are a key component of Soitec’s strategy to extend its technology-development efforts by combining Smart Cut with Picogiga’s epitaxial technology,” Carlos Mazuré, the Soitec Group’s CTO, said in a statement.
“Leveraging multiple technologies internally is essential to our ability to provide the compound material world with fully engineered substrate solutions, and enables us to leverage Smart Cut as a ‘tool box’ to engineer new substrates beyond silicon,” he added.
