Infineon phases out GaN System parts
Infineon Technologies is phasing out the automotive gallium nitride (GaN) power devices it acquired with GaN Systems as it looks to introduce its own GaN products.
In 2023 Infineon acquired GaN Systems which had a patented island device architecture for 650V devices and customers including car makers BMW and Toyota and automotive equipment makers Vitesco Technologies and Hella.
However GaN System built its devices at TSMC, which last year announced it was shutting down its GaN foundry business by July 2027.
“TSMC exiting GaN foundry for GaN Systems means we cannot continue these parts which means we need to address automotive customers with our inhouse 650V so there will be a flavour of technology with the know how from GaN Systems,” Dr Johannes Schoiswohl, senior vice president and business line manager for GaN at Infineon, tells eeNews Europe.
“If you look at 650V there is not much that is out there in the market. We are in the process of working through that and want to release our automotive GaN parts later this year,” he said.
“When we purely look at GaN in automotive, there is no explosion of revenue, but I would also say that based on customer interactions there are a lot of designs going on. It’s more about the design cycle for automotive, it simply takes more time. With on board chargers (OBC) and DC-DC converters we have multiple customer engagements that are now moving to production and I do think we will see the first GaN in OBC later this year so revenue will start in the next 12 to 18 months.”
The TSMC 650V and 80V GaN-on-silicon process is being licensed to another foundry, GlobalFoundries (GF), to provide customers with a continued source of devices. However for automotive this would entail significant re-qualification of the parts on the new process which can take many months. The process port is expected to be completed later in 2026 at the GF fab in Burlington, Vermont to provide a sovereign US supply of chips.
“How we continue with foundries is where we are open at this point in time and as GaN continues to grow, being flexible in supply chain for geopolitical is a good thing to have. I would see it as an option to have moving forward,” said Schoiswohl.
Having the production in house at Infineon’s fabs in Villach, Austria and Kulim, Malaysia, along with in-house packaging is important for the quality levels required for automotive qualification, he says. “We designed the technology from the very beginning with the packaging in house so if something is not working we have the full tracking and that’s much easier if you have production in-house. That is especially helpful for something as challenging as an automotive traction inverter,” he said.
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