The GaN market is ready to take off.
GaN is one of the hot keywords in the semiconductor market recently.
Previously, Japan Semiconductor, a chip manufacturer under Toshiba, significantly expanded its chip production capacity, focusing on SiC and GaN chips. Subsequently, TSMC, a major chip manufacturing company, adjusted its 6-inch wafer foundry capacity. This move once again pushed GaN into the spotlight.
So, what changes will TSMC's move bring to the GaN market?
TSMC Adjusts 6-inch and 8-inch Capacities
When the capacity of advanced processes is tight, TSMC is gradually withdrawing from the capacity layout of mature processes and unprofitable ones. Among them, the 6-inch and 8-inch factories and GaN production are the first to be affected.
In early July, TSMC confirmed that it will stop GaN production at its Fab 5 in the next two years and transform it into an advanced packaging production line. TSMC was a pioneer in GaN wafer foundry. It introduced this technology in its 6-inch wafer factory in 2014, expanded the production scope of GaN devices in 2015, and extended the production to its 8-inch wafer factory in 2021.
It is reported that the fierce price war among Chinese competitors is the key factor prompting TSMC to strategically withdraw from the GaN field. Due to the limited production scale and meager profits of GaN, this business no longer fits TSMC's strategic positioning.
It is worth noting that TSMC's GaN business is mainly carried out on 6-inch wafers. As the GaN business is gradually phased out, there is not much demand for 6-inch wafer foundry.
Data from financial service institution Anue shows that TSMC's current monthly production capacity of 6-inch GaN wafers is 3,000 - 4,000 pieces. Among them, Navitas accounts for more than half of the orders, and Ancora Semi is also one of its major customers.
According to the latest news, Navitas has reached a strategic cooperation with Taiwan-based foundry Powerchip Semiconductor. Powerchip will start producing 100V GaN products in the first half of 2026, using 200mm silicon wafers. Within the next 12 - 24 months, Navitas' existing orders for 650V devices will be gradually transferred from its exclusive foundry partner TSMC to Powerchip.
Currently, some power IC design companies have said that they have received oral notices from TSMC that TSMC will end the operation of its last 6-inch factory by the end of 2027. Related high-voltage (HV) processes, including power management ICs (PMICs), motor driver ICs, display driver ICs, and other chips that need to withstand higher voltages, will all be affected.
After exiting the 6-inch wafer manufacturing business, the idle factory land and buildings are expected to be reused. Some analysts believe that TSMC is likely to transform the factory site into an advanced packaging factory to support its expansion in technologies such as CoWoS and SoIC.
In addition, TSMC also said that it will continue to consolidate its 8-inch wafer capacity.
GaN Market Booms
TSMC's series of moves come against the backdrop of the rapid growth of the GaN market. This contrast has attracted more attention to the future pattern of the GaN market.
As one of the core materials of the third-generation wide-bandgap semiconductors, GaN has excellent characteristics such as high breakdown field strength, high saturated electron drift velocity, strong radiation resistance, and good chemical stability. It is an ideal material for manufacturing optoelectronic, power electronic, and microelectronic devices with a wide spectrum, high power, and high efficiency.
According to the research data recently released by TrendForce, it is estimated that the market size of GaN power devices will climb from $390 million in 2024 to $3.51 billion in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 44%.
GaN technology first emerged in fast chargers for consumer electronics. Its high efficiency and high power density characteristics have significantly reduced the size of chargers, making them more portable. Now, the application scope of GaN is expanding rapidly and penetrating into high-end industrial and automotive fields with higher requirements for reliability and performance. Key potential applications include AI data centers, humanoid robots, automotive OBCs, and photovoltaic micro-inverters.
In the field of data centers, data centers have huge demands for high-speed computing and power. According to TrendForce data, NVIDIA's Blackwell platform will be officially launched in large quantities in 2025, replacing the existing Hopper platform and becoming the main solution for NVIDIA's high-end GPUs (graphics processing units), accounting for nearly 83% of the overall high-end products. In AI server models such as B200 and GB200, which pursue high performance, the power consumption of a single GPU can reach over 1000W.
Facing the soaring power demand, the power specification of each data center cabinet will be increased from 30 - 40kW to 100kW, which poses a great challenge to the data center power supply system. The combination of GaN and liquid cooling technology will be the key to improving the energy efficiency of AI data centers. Currently, several GaN manufacturers have successively announced partnerships with NVIDIA.
In the field of humanoid robots, the joints require precise, fast-responsive, and compact motor control systems. GaN is expected to become one of the key solutions. Currently, many manufacturers have successively launched reference designs for humanoid robot joint motor drives based on GaN technology, hoping to achieve compact and efficient motion control.
In the automotive field, GaN is becoming an important emerging technology option after Si and SiC. As the demand for higher power and higher energy efficiency in electric vehicles continues to grow, GaN power devices, with their high switching speed and low loss characteristics, provide an ideal solution for inverters and DC - DC converters in electric vehicles. Many high - performance new energy vehicles on the market have begun to adopt GaN - based transistors and diodes. For example, significant progress has been made in multi - stage GaN solutions for 800V high - voltage platform designs, which will further promote the popularization of GaN technology in electric vehicles.
So, why did TSMC, the wafer foundry giant, announce that it will stop GaN chip foundry in such a promising industry?
There are mainly two reasons:
Firstly, the technical threshold for GaN chip foundry is not very high, mainly focusing on 6 - inch and 8 - inch wafers. In the past two years, with the popularity of GaN, more players have entered the market.
Secondly, advanced process wafer foundry production is TSMC's main task, and the return on capacity is far higher than that of GaN foundry. With the explosive growth in the demand for AI chips, TSMC's capacity allocation decision reflects its core strategy of "focusing on high - value - added businesses".
Who is the Leader in GaN?
From the perspective of substrate materials, there are mainly four technical routes for gallium nitride devices: GaN - on - Si, GaN - on - Sapphire, GaN - on - SiC, and GaN - on - GaN. Among them, the cost of silicon substrates is only 1/10 of that of silicon carbide, and the existing 8 - inch silicon wafer production lines can be directly used. Therefore, GaN - on - Si has become the most cost - effective technical route. Currently, most of the major GaN device companies in the market adopt the GaN - on - Si solution.
In the global GaN power device market, Innoscience, Power Integrations of the United States, Navitas Semiconductor of the United States, and EPC of the United States are currently in the leading position. Innoscience of China has become the global leader. According to research data from Yole, in the global GaN power device market in 2023, the above four companies accounted for 31%, 17%, 16%, and 15% of the market share respectively. The market shares of the remaining companies are as follows: GaN Systems 8%, Infineon 4%, Transphor 3%, and other companies 6%.
Among them, Innoscience's mass - production technology for 8 - inch GaN wafers has an absolute leading position in the industry. It is the world's first IDM manufacturer to achieve large - scale mass production. Through its independently developed 3.0 - generation process platform, the chip output per wafer has increased by 80% compared with 6 - inch wafers, the chip manufacturing cost has been reduced by 40% compared with the industry average, and the yield rate is stably above 95% (the industry average is 85 - 90%). This breakthrough has made the large - scale application of GaN devices possible.
Recently, Innoscience announced in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it has reached a cooperation with NVIDIA to jointly promote the large - scale implementation of the 800 VDC (800 - volt direct - current) power supply architecture in AI data centers. This architecture is a new - generation power supply system specially designed by NVIDIA for future high - efficiency power - supplied megawatt - level computing infrastructure. Compared with traditional 54V power supplies, it has significant advantages in system efficiency, heat loss, and reliability, and can support a 100 - 1000 - fold increase in AI computing power.
Will GaN Surpass SiC?
The popularity of GaN seems to be 1 - 2 years later than that of SiC.
In the field of power electronics, as traditional Si - based devices struggle to meet the requirements of high - frequency, high - voltage, and high - temperature scenarios, SiC, with its wide - bandgap, high breakdown electric field, and high thermal conductivity characteristics, reduces conduction losses; GaN, with its high electron mobility and unique heterostructure, reduces switching losses.
Take the comparison of the switching efficiency between SiC and GaN in Infineon's 3kW power supply application as an example:
After the switching frequency exceeds 200K, the switching efficiency of silicon carbide will decrease significantly. At the current mainstream frequency of 500K for GaN power supplies, the efficiency of silicon carbide will decrease by 1%.
In high - temperature and high - voltage applications, GaN is inferior to silicon carbide. Therefore, when comparing silicon carbide and GaN power transistors on the market, the 600 - 800V withstand voltage is basically the dividing line. GaN is mainly used in the consumer market below this withstand voltage value, while silicon carbide is mainly used in the high - value market above this withstand voltage value.
Therefore, in current practical applications, the division of labor between SiC and GaN is relatively clear, and they do not interfere with each other.
However, in some overlapping application fields, GaN is becoming a more competitive option.
Daniel Murphy, the technical marketing director of Cambridge GaN Devices, said: "In some applications, GaN may be the only solution. For example, with the proliferation of artificial intelligence processors, the power demand of data centers is now increasing exponentially, which requires leveraging the advantages of GaN power devices."
Regarding the cost issue, Daniel Murphy said, "GaN has proven to be reliable, and the early problems around design challenges have basically been solved. As GaN technology matures, it is expected that its price will drop to a level comparable to that of standard silicon." Doug Bailey, the vice - president of marketing at Power Integrations, also said, "The production cost of GaN devices is not higher than that of silicon devices because it can use the same production lines as silicon with relatively few modifications."
In the future, as GaN technology gradually matures, it may bring many unexpected surprises to the semiconductor market.
In addition, if GaN devices can successfully increase the drain - source voltage without weakening their current huge manufacturing advantages, they are likely to break free from their current position mainly in consumer electronics (such as USB chargers and AC adapters) and enter the higher - power application fields currently dominated by SiC power devices.
Now, some manufacturers have begun to showcase their 1700V GaN solutions. For example, Power Integrations has launched a new member of the InnoMux - 2 series of single - stage, independently regulated multi - output offline power supply ICs. This chip is manufactured using PI's proprietary PowiGaN technology, supports the use of higher bus voltages, and is the industry's first 1700V GaN switching IC and the first GaN device to exceed 1250V.
The team of Guangdong Zhineng Technology Co., Ltd. collaborated with the team of Academician Hao Yue and Professor Zhang Jincheng from the Guangzhou Research Institute of Xidian University/Guangzhou Third - Generation Semiconductor Innovation Center and successfully developed the first 1700V GaN HEMT device. This device was realized on a 6 - inch sapphire substrate using the thin - buffer - layer AlGaN/GaN epitaxial wafer technology of Guangdong Zhineng Technology Co., Ltd. This achievement was published in the IEEE Electron Device Letters journal.
This GaN HEMT device has a high blocking voltage of over 3000V and a low on - resistance of 17Ω·mm, showing excellent performance. The advantage of this technology lies in reducing the difficulty of epitaxy and processing and lowering the cost, making GaN a strong competitor for applications at 1700V or even higher levels.
However, it may be too early to talk about whether GaN will impact SiC devices. After all, the research on high - voltage and ultra - high - voltage GaN power devices is still in a relatively early stage. In the current semiconductor market, the pattern of GaN and SiC complementing each other still exists, that is, "look at GaN for medium - and low - voltage high - frequency applications, rely on SiC for high - voltage and high - power applications".
This article is from the WeChat public account "Semiconductor Industry Insights" (ID: ICViews), author: Feng Ning. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.