4 July 2013

Kyma extends 2” n-type GaN substrates from government/internal use to commercial availability

Kyma Technologies Inc of Raleigh, NC, USA, which provides crystalline gallium nitride (GaN), aluminum nitride (AlN) and aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN) materials and related products and services, has announced the commercial availability of 2-inch diameter n-type c-plane GaN substrates.

During the its 15 year history, Kyma has produced free-standing GaN products in a variety of form factors, including c-plane substrates of 10mm squares, 18mm squares, and 30mm diameter rounds, and rectangular non-polar and semi-polar substrates of 5mm x 10mm and larger. However, 2-inch c-plane GaN substrates were typically held back from commercial sales for use in government contract programs or internal R&D. Improvements in the availability of 2-inch substrates has allowed the firm to release more of this product to commercial customers.

“GaN device manufacturers making devices on sapphire or silicon are constantly striving to improve the performance of their devices,” says chief marketing officer Ed Preble. “GaN substrates allow for GaN-on-GaN growth, which results in devices that have double the thermal conductivity and 100-1000 times fewer crystal defects,” he adds. “Improvements to these two material properties are critical for boosting device performance and reliability.”

For most GaN-based device manufacturers, 2-inch round substrates are a critical form factor. Most LED makers currently use 2-inch sapphire wafers in metal-organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) GaN epitaxy systems and also in a number of post-epitaxy wafer processing systems. Providing this wafer shape is therefore critical to enabling bulk GaN wafers to penetrate into the existing GaN device markets, says Kyma.

“We are very pleased to begin shipping 2-inch wafers, an important entry point for our customer’s production requirements,” comments CEO Keith Evans. “Kyma has long sought to improve the availability of GaN substrates for our many customers asking for this material every day, and this is a critical step for us to take.”

Kyma notes that, in addition to the thermal conductivity and defect-related benefits of GaN-on-GaN device growth, there are several other benefits, including (a) shorter and simpler epitaxy recipes, (b) higher current density and/or smaller device footprint, (c) no wafer bow after epitaxy, and (d) simpler designs for vertical device geometries.

Tags: Kyma Bulk GaN

Visit: www.kymatech.com