China Silicon Wafer Chip Manufacturers, Suppliers, Factory

The growth of GaN epitaxy on GaN substrate presents a unique challenge, despite the material’s superior properties when compared to silicon. GaN epitaxy offers significant advantages in terms of band gap width, thermal conductivity, and breakdown electric field over silicon-based materials. This makes the adoption of GaN as the backbone for the third generation of semiconductors, which provide enhanced cooling, lower conduction loss, and improved performance under high temperatures and frequencies, a promising and crucial advancement for the photonic and micro-electronic industries.

Defect-free epitaxial growth occurs when one crystal lattice has nearly identical lattice constants to another. Growth happens when lattice sites of the two lattices at the interface region are approximately matched, which is possible with a small lattice mismatch (less than 0.1%). This approximate matching is achieved even with elastic strain at the interface, where each atom is slightly displaced from its original position in the boundary layer. While a small amount of strain is tolerable for thin layers and even desirable for quantum well lasers, the strain energy stored in the crystal is generally lowered by the formation of misfit dislocations, which involve a missing row of atoms in one lattice.

Common thin films are mainly divided into three categories: semiconductor thin films, dielectric thin films, and metal/metal compound thin films.

When producing large-sized GaN single crystal substrates, HVPE is currently the best choice for commercialization. However, the back carrier concentration of the grown GaN cannot be precisely controlled.

According to reports from German media, U.S. chip manufacturer Wolfspeed is pausing its plans to build a semiconductor plant in Germany.