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GaN Wafers from Ammono to be used in Two ARPA-E Projects

January 22, 2014 by Jeff Shepard

Poland's Ammono S.A. announced its partnership with Kyma Technologies, Inc. and MicroLink Devices, Inc. in two novel projects related to power electronics as the supplier of gallium nitride (GaN) substrates. Based on a proprietary patented technology, Ammono is an innovator in low-dislocation GaN substrate manufacturing. Both projects were funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy's (ARPA-E) SWITCHES program, short for "Strategies for Wide-Bandgap, Inexpensive Transistors for Controlling High-Efficiency Systems." The projects aim to find innovative ways to lower the cost and improve the efficiency of power electronics.

“Those two partnerships are based on the development of new concepts, which explore the quality of our low dislocation GaN and allow new, better and more economic devices. The participation in ARPA-E projects shows the recognition of US industrial players for the breakthrough potential of our products,” says Piotr Wiliński, the Chief Commercial Officer at Ammono.

Ammono’s GaN wafers will enable Kyma Technologies to produce low-cost, high-performing boules needed for power semiconductor manufacturing. Currently, growing boules from GaN seeds is slow, expensive, and inconsistent, which negatively affects manufacturing yield and electronic device performance. Kyma will select the highest quality GaN seeds and use their proprietary hydride vapor phase epitaxial (HVPE) growth process to rapidly grow the seeds into boules while maintaining high crystal structural quality and purity.

“We admire the great accomplishments of the Ammono team, and we are excited to win the support of ARPA-E to help Kyma and Ammono explore the natural synergies of our respective GaN crystal growth technologies,” stated Keith Evans, Kyma’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

Utilizing Ammono’s GaN wafers, MicroLink Devices will develop an innovative method to remove the transistor structure from the wafer without damaging any components. In conventional manufacturing processes, this expensive wafer is permanently attached to the transistor, so the wafer can only be used once. MicroLink’s method will facilitate wafer reuse while significantly reducing costs to engineer affordable, high-performance transistors needed for power conversion.

“MicroLink Devices is an industry leader in developing manufacturable epitaxial lift-off technologies that reduce the cost and improve the performance of III-V semiconductor materials. Ammono 's bulk GaN substrates are the ideal platform on which to grow high-quality epitaxial GaN material. We look forward to working with Ammono to develop new technologies that will significantly reduce the cost of providing GaN epitaxial device structures with very low dislocation density.”