Leti highlights progress in GaN power electronics Micro/nanotechnology R&D center CEA-Leti of Grenoble, France says that two complementary research papers presented at the 66th IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM 2020) confirm that its approach to gallium nitride (GaN) technologies is on track to overcome challenges in the architecture and performance of advanced GaN devices embedding a MOS gate, and targeting the fast-growing global market for power-conversion systems. Researchers recounted experiments with variations of high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) based on GaN-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si). Compared with silicon, GaN-based semiconductors improve both performance and reliability of increasingly compact power converters, and AlGaN/GaN HEMTs have shown the potential to replace power-conversion solutions based on silicon or silicon carbide (SiC) for high-frequency applications with high power and low noise. This technology is therefore expected to be a cost-effective power-conversion solution for many end-user applications, ranging from smartphones to kitchen appliances and e-vehicles and from battery loaders to DC/DC or AC/DC converters.