Texas Instruments expands its own manufacturing of gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors, quadrupling capacity

     Texas Instruments announced that the company's gallium nitride (GaN) -based power semiconductor has begun production at its Aizu, Japan, facility. With the Aizu plant in operation, combined with TI's existing GaN manufacturing capacity, TI's own GaN power semiconductor manufacturing capacity will be increased to four times the original.

     Mohammad Yunus, senior vice president, Technology and Manufacturing Group, Texas Instruments, said: "Building on decades of expertise in GaN chip design and manufacturing, we have successfully validated Texas Instruments 8-inch GaN technology and will begin mass production. This approach to GaN manufacturing has significant scalability and cost advantages at this stage, which is a milestone that will help us continue to expand our own manufacturing of GaN chips. By 2030, we will increase our own manufacturing capacity to more than 95 percent, while supplying from multiple Texas Instruments facilities, ensuring a reliable supply of our full range of high-power, energy-efficient GaN semiconductor products."

     As an alternative to silicon, GaN is a semiconductor material with advantages in energy efficiency, switching speed, power solution size and weight, total system cost, and high temperature and high pressure performance. GaN chips offer higher power density, i.e. more power in a smaller space, so they can be used for power converters in laptops and mobile phones and for smaller, more energy-efficient motor drives in HVAC systems and home appliances.

     Kannan Soundarapandian, vice president of High Voltage Power at Texas Instruments, said: "With GaN technology, Texas Instruments can more efficiently deliver more power in a compact space, which is a key market need driving innovation for many of our customers. Designers of systems such as server power, solar power, and AC/DC adapters are challenged to reduce power consumption and improve energy efficiency, and they increasingly need a steady supply of GaN based high-performance chips from Texas Instruments. "Texas Instruments' integrated GaN power class product family enables customers to achieve higher power density, better ease of use and lower system costs."

     In addition, TI GaN chips use Texas Instruments' proprietary silicon-based gallium nitride (GAN-on-Silicon) process, which has undergone more than 80 million hours of reliability testing and integrated protection features to maintain the safety of high-pressure systems.