gan semiconductor

**Gallium Nitride (GaN)** — a wide-bandgap semiconductor (3.4 eV) excelling in high-frequency, high-efficiency power conversion and RF applications. **Advantages** - Very high electron mobility in 2DEG (Two-Dimensional Electron Gas) at AlGaN/GaN interface - High breakdown field — compact high-voltage devices - Fast switching (MHz range vs kHz for silicon) — smaller passive components - Direct bandgap — also used for blue/white LEDs and lasers **Applications** - **Power**: Fast chargers (Anker, Apple), laptop adapters, data center power supplies. 65W GaN charger is 3x smaller than silicon equivalent - **RF/5G**: Base station power amplifiers, radar, satellite communications. GaN-on-SiC HEMTs dominate military/telecom RF - **LEDs**: Blue/green/white LEDs (Nobel Prize 2014 — Akasaki, Amano, Nakamura) - **Lidar**: GaN lasers for autonomous vehicle sensing **GaN-on-Si vs GaN-on-SiC** - GaN-on-Si: Lower cost, used for power conversion (up to 650V) - GaN-on-SiC: Better thermal performance, used for high-power RF **GaN** and **SiC** are the two pillars of the wide-bandgap revolution, displacing silicon in power electronics and RF.