30 June 2023
A substantial Equipment Shipment to the GEECI in IISc
The GaN Ecosystem Enabling Center and Incubator (GEECI), a MeitY and FSID-IISc Bangalore initiative, installs Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology’s Full Suite of plasma processing solutions for their GaN Power & RF Pilot Production Line
Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology is delighted to announce a substantial equipment shipment to the GaN Ecosystem Enabling Centre and Incubator (GEECI) located at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, (CeNSE) Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in Bengaluru (formally Bangalore). The technologies being installed in the pilot production line include atomic layer etch (ALE), two variants of inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etch modules, and plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD). The suite of gallium nitride (GaN) plasma processing solutions will be used to develop next generation GaN-on-Si and GaN-on-SiC high power and high frequency power electronics and RF devices to offer improved efficiency and performance.
The rise in GaN adoption recently has been significant, driven by high-demand power electronics applications like consumer fast chargers, with increasing market traction in radio frequency (RF) power amplification devices in mobile networks, electric vehicle onboard/offboard chargers and switching devices for datacentres.
With the addition of applications like drivetrain inverter modules and large scale industry power conversion, the market size for GaN is projected to be >$2B annually by 2027. GaN offers many device performance benefits in the RF and power electronics space, like advantages in power density, bandwidth, efficiency and thermal conductivity, but more research into stress and defects of the material and their impact at device level, is required to further accelerate its adoption across all markets.
Positioned within India’s premier high technology hub, in the city of Bengaluru and with strong links to several technology giants within the hub, GEECI is an ideal environment for technology start-ups and spin-offs. Professor Srinivasan Raghavan (Vasu), the person in charge of setting up GEECI, said, “The equipment, ongoing process and service support, and technical collaboration with Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology is crucial to our GaN device development program. We are incredibly excited to partner with Oxford Instruments to establish our new GaN pilot production line to support the next generation of GaN startups and spin outs, which are critical to accelerate India’s flourishing semiconductor ecosystem. Prof. Shankar Kumar Selvaraja the Process expert said, “We look forward to developing new process recipes to enable GaN power and RF electronics”.
Ian Wright, Plasma Technology’s Vice President of Sales and Business Development, Asia, commented “We are delighted to be bringing our GaN technology to such a prestigious institution as the IISc. We have recently experienced a surge in interest for our solutions in India, which points toward a shift in the technology landscape for that region with momentum generated through government funding,” also commenting, “We have invested in an ambitious and expanding program of service and support for India, and are uniquely positioned in the region, to play an integral role in encouraging transformational semiconductor technology development and industry growth.”
Oxford Instruments are attending Semicon China 2023 in Shanghai from the 29th June to 1st July. Ian and his Asia team will be available to share our latest advanced solutions for SiC and GaN power device production. Meet us there to discuss how our substrate prep, surface modification, feature etch, ALE, ALD and Etchpoint™ process solutions, can generate more good wafers per day at lower cost.
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Issued for and on behalf of Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology