Semiconductor today

Penn State is to receive $3m from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of a larger grant awarded to defense, aerospace and technology company Northrop Grumman. The joint project aims to develop a novel method for integrating gallium nitride (GaN) with silicon substrates, since GaN provides superior performance and faster switching speeds for power-intensive applications while silicon offers scalability and affordability. This hybrid approach can lead to more efficient power electronics with lower production costs, suiting high-demand applications like electric vehicles, power electronics and data centers, where efficiency and durability are critical...

Silicon photonics-based chip-to-chip optical connectivity firm Ayar Labs of San Jose, CA, USA has secured $155m in a Series D funding round led by Advent Global Opportunities and Light Street Capital. Other new strategic and financial investors participating in the round include 3M Ventures and Autopilot...

NUBURU Inc of Centennial, CO, USA — which was founded in 2015 and develops and manufactures high-power industrial blue lasers — says that NYSE Regulation has sent it a warning letter, as provided under Section 1009(a) of the NYSE American LLC Company Guide, describing violations by the firm of Sections 301 and 713 of the Company Guide...

According to market analyst firm Yole Group, the semiconductor laser market is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9% from $3.1bn in 2023 to more than $5bn in 2029, continuing to be driven by several factors...

Celestial AI of Santa Clara, CA, USA has been selected by a committee of venture capitalists and industry entrepreneurs to receive this year’s Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) ‘Start-Up to Watch’ award for its innovative and transformative Photonic Fabric technology platform and customer engagement model...

Japan-based ROHM Co Ltd and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) have entered a strategic partnership on development and volume production of gallium nitride (GaN) power devices for electric vehicle applications...

Intelligent power and sensing technology firm onsemi of Scottsdale, AZ, USA has agreed to acquire the silicon carbide junction field-effect transistor (SiC JFET) technology business, including the United Silicon Carbide subsidiary, of Qorvo Inc of Greensboro, NC, USA (which provides core technologies and RF solutions for mobile, infrastructure and defense applications) for $115m in cash...

POET Technologies Inc of Toronto, Ontario, Canada — designer and developer of the POET Optical Interposer, photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and light sources for the data-center, telecom and artificial intelligence (AI) markets — has expanded its board of directors to six members by appointing Bob Tirva as director and member of the Audit Committee. Along with the five incumbent directors, he will serve until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until his successor is duly elected or appointed...

Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA — which makes enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) and integrated circuits for power management applications — has launched the EPC9178, the latest reference design for photovoltaic (PV) optimizers. Designed to deliver high reliability while addressing critical challenges in energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness through the reduction of passive components in solar energy systems, the EPC9178 demonstrates the transformative potential of GaN technology for renewable energy solutions, says the firm...

At the 70th annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM 2024) in San Francisco, CA, USA (7–11 December), nanoelectronics research center imec of Leuven, Belgium has presented results on the heterointegration of indium phosphide (InP) chiplets on a 300mm RF silicon interposer. The chiplets’ integration comes with a negligible 0.1dB insertion loss at 140GHz. In addition, no performance degradation is observed upon assembly of a two-stage InP power amplifier (PA). As the first to achieve this, imec claims that its findings mark a milestone in developing compact, energy-efficient modules for above-100GHz communication and radar sensing...

The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) has named Qorvo Inc of Greensboro, NC, USA (which provides core technologies and RF solutions for mobile, infrastructure and defense applications) as the Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company in its category for 2024. Qorvo received the same award for the first time in 2022...

Tokyo-based automated semiconductor test & measurement equipment maker Advantest Corp has announced an integrated test cell designed to maximize die-level test yields for wide-bandgap (WBG) devices essential to power semiconductors. The Advantest Known Good Die (KGD) Test Cell combines the firm’s CREA MT series power device testers with the new HA1100 die prober...

The US Department of Commerce has signed three separate preliminary memoranda of terms (PMT) under the CHIPS and Science Act to provide proposed direct funding of the following projects...

In the ‘Planet Navitas’ suite (Tech West, Venetian suite 29-335) at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2025) in Las Vegas (7–10 January), gallium nitride (GaN) power IC and silicon carbide (SiC) technology firm Navitas Semiconductor Corp of Torrance, CA, USA is showcasing several technology and system breakthroughs for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, electric vehicles (EVs) and mobile applications...

VisIC Technologies Ltd of Ness Ziona, Israel – a fabless supplier of power conversion devices based on gallium nitride (GaN) transistors – and mobility technology company AVL of Graz, Austria (which provides development, simulation and testing in the automotive industry and in other sectors such as rail, marine and energy) have partnered to advance high-efficiency GaN inverter technology for the electric vehicles (EV) market. The collaboration will provide automotive OEMs with power semiconductors that exceed silicon carbide (SiC) performance, while offering lower costs at device and system level...

Engineered substrate manufacturer Soitec of Bernin, near Grenoble, France has committed to deliver 300mm radio frequency silicon-on-insulator (RF-SOI) substrates to New York-headquartered GlobalFoundries (GF, which has manufacturing plants in the USA, Europe and Singapore) for the production of GF’s RF-SOI technology platforms, including its most advanced RF solution 9SW...

The US Department of Energy’s (DoE) Office of Electricity (OE) has announced the eight winners of the Silicon Carbide (SiC) Packaging Prize Phase 1 who will receive $50,000 each in cash prizes (from a $400,000 total prize pool). Awarded in three phases, the total $2.25m prize is part of the American-Made Challenges Program, which fosters collaboration between the USA’s entrepreneurs and innovators, DOE’s National Labs, and the private sector...

New York-headquartered GlobalFoundries (GF, the only US-based pure-play foundry with a global manufacturing footprint including facilities in the USA, Europe and Singapore) has received an additional $9.5m in federal funding from the US government to advance the manufacturing of its gallium nitride (GaN)-on-silicon at its fabrication plant in Essex Junction, Vermont...

Japan’s ROHM Co Ltd says that its EcoSiC products — including SiC MOSFETs and SiC Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) — have been adopted in the HFA/HCA series of 3.5kW output AC–DC power supply units for 3-phase applications made by Japan-based power supply maker COSEL Co Ltd. Incorporating ROHM SiC MOSFETs and SiC SBDs into the forced-air-cooled HFA series and conduction-cooled HCA series achieves up to 94% efficiency. The HCA series has been mass produced since 2023. The HFA series began mass production in 2024...

Japan-based Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM, a member of the Asahi Kasei Group’s Material sector) has begun mass production and shipment of its next-generation indium arsenide (InAs) compound Hall element, which are used to detect magnetic fields (magnetic flux density)...