Taiwan-based Intelligent Epitaxy Technology (IntelliEPI) has teamed up with IVWorks of South Korea to jointly develop and market GaN epi wafers based on molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technology.
IntelliEPI president YC Kao said both firms have since 2018 started cooperative development of GaN materials and epi wafer technology, and will form a technology and marketing alliance to promote GaN epi wafers fabricated with MBE technology for RF and power devices applications worldwide.
IV Works now leverages hybrid-MBE technology to make high-end GaN epi wafer with optimal quality and growth speed. The company has also developed AI-based epi wafer growth monitoring system to help boost yield rates for 100-200mm GaN epi wafers at its three MBE systems.
IntelliEPI utilizes its proprietary realtime in-situ growth monitoring technology on MBE systems for the manufacturing of epi wafers on GaAs, InP and GaSb substrates.
Kao said the new partnership can integrate IV Works' AI-based advanced MBE GaN epi wafer growth technology and IntelliEPI's capability for volume producing diverse MBE epi wafers to jointly develop GaN chips for RF and power devices.
IV Works CEO Young-Kyun Noh also pointed out that the collaboration will accelerate AI-based production of quality GaN epi wafers and significantly boost market penetration and competitiveness for such wafers. The company has readied samples of GaN-on-Si and GaN-on-SiC products for validations by potential customers.
Thanks to its high-frequency trait, GaN is expected to be massively adopted as a new-generation semiconductor material in the 5G and IoT era, and the IntelliEPI- IVWorks tieup will help them develop a preemptive presence in the new segment, industry sources said.
Article translated by Willis Ke
