Moore’s predictions became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The computing power of chips not only did double every 24 months, they had to double every 24 months or the tech industry — and the economy at large — would suffer dire consequences, stifling innovation and economic advancement.

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re/code
Alex Lidow
April 17, 2015

Chip advances have powered one technology revolution after another: PCs, the Internet, smartphones, smartwatches and, soon, self-driving cars. One company betting its future on III-V materials is Efficient Power Conversion, a 34-person startup led by Chief Executive Alex Lidow. EPC already is seeing steady revenue growth from devices that incorporate a III-V layer made of gallium nitride (GaN). In 2016 or 2017 he expects to adapt the gallium nitride manufacturing process to work for the logic circuits that do the thinking in computer processors. Because of gallium nitride's electrical properties, "you immediately get a thousand times potential in improvement" over conventional silicon, he said.

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CNET.com
April 17, 2015

Dean Takahashi at VentureBeat profiles Alex Lidow. Silicon chips have had a decades-long run as the foundation for modern electronics. But a new kind of chip, based on the compound material gallium nitride (GaN), promises to unseat silicon because it has higher performance, less power consumption, and lower cost.

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VentureBeat
April 2, 2015

Enhancement-mode gallium nitride (GaN) transistors have been commercially available for over five years. Commercially available GaN FETs are designed to be both higher performance and lower cost than state-of-the-art silicon-based power MOSFETs. This achievement marks the first time in 60 years that any technology rivals silicon both in terms of performance and cost, and signals the ultimate displacement of the venerable, but aging power MOSFET.

EDN
Alex Lidow
February 18, 2015

Ashlee Vance at Bloomberg Business profiles EPC. Silicon has enjoyed some serious staying power. For going on 60 years, it’s been the semiconductor of choice at the heart of transistors—the tiny switches that power the Information Age. A valley has been named after it. Many billion-dollar empires have been forged from it. And now—look away, silicon—it may finally be on the verge of being replaced.

Speaking from an industry perspective, technologies only exist for as long as they yield the benefits and capabilities that promise man a certain advantage. That said, mainstream silicon CMOS technology has afforded the industry immeasurable gains that it has thoroughly benefitted from. The question now is this. Is the sun shining down on CMOS ready to set? An emerging class of GaN power chips is finally knocking down the final cost barriers to their adoption. The chips will enable a wide range of applications from wireless charging to autonomous vehicles and more efficient cellular communications, according to a DesignCon keynoter.

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EETimes Asia
February, 2015

For the first time in 60 years, a new higher-performance semiconductor technology is less expensive to produce than the silicon counterpart. Gallium nitride (GaN), has demonstrated both a dramatic improvement in transistor performance and the ability to be produced at a lower cost than silicon. GaN transistors have unleashed new applications as a result of their ability to switch higher voltages and higher currents faster than any transistor before. These extraordinary characteristics have ushered in new applications capable of transforming the future. But this is just the beginning.

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EDN
By: Alex Lidow
January, 2015

In this installment of the ‘How to GaN’ series we will discuss the 4th generation of eGaN FETs in 48 VIN applications and evaluate the thermal performance of the chipscale packaging of high voltage lateral eGaN FETs.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
December, 2014

Technics is back. Panasonic has unveiled the first new hi-fi products from the highly-regarded brand in 6 years. The new Reference Class system is made up of three components – a stereo power amp, a network audio control player and a speaker system. The amp uses a JENO Digital Engine to eliminate jitter and nip noise in the bud, and Load Adaptive Phase Calibration (LAPC) for flat amplitude-phase frequency delivery. It features GaN for high speed switching while keeping signal loss low, a proprietary digital link input, analog XLR input, analog RCA input, bi-wiring speaker terminals, and a silent linear power supply.

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DesignCon 2015’s Thursday (January 29th) keynote speaker will be Dr. Alex Lidow, CEO and co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC). For most of his career, Alex has focused on improving the efficiency of power conversion in hopes of reducing the environmental impact of energy production and consumption. As an R&D engineer at International Rectifier, he co-invented the HEXFET power MOSFET. The patents from this invention brought in more than $900M. Alex holds numerous additional patents in power semiconductor technology, including basic patents in power MOSFETs as well as in GaN FETs. He recently co-authored the first textbook on GaN transistors, “GaN Transistors for Efficient Power Conversion”. You can catch Alex’s keynote speech at DesignCon 2015 on Thursday, January 29, 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM.

EDN
December 3, 2014
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Practical wireless power systems need to address the convenience factor of such systems. Standards such as the A4WP Class 3 have defined a broad coil impedance range that address the convenience factor and can be used as a starting point to compare the performance of the amplifiers. In this installment of WiGaN both the ZVS Class-D and Class-E amplifiers will be tested at 6.78 MHz to the A4WP Class 3 standard.

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Gallium Nitride (GaN) FETS are poised to replace silicon power devices in voltage regulators and DC-DC power supplies. Their switching speeds are significantly faster and their R_DS(on) is lower than silicon MOSFETS. That can lead to higher power efficiency power sources, which is good for all of us. If you're designing power circuits with GaN devices, you need a grasp of the device's switching speed.

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In this installment of the ‘How to GaN’ series we will discuss a new family of eGaN FETs that is keeping Moore’s Law alive with significant gains in key switching figures of merit that widen the performance gap with the power MOFET in high frequency power conversion.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
October, 2014

The market for SiC and GaN power semiconductors is expected to grow at 63 percent CAGR between 2011 and 2017, reaching around $500 million, according to The Information Network, a US market research company.

Compound Semiconductor
October, 2014
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This article presents hard-switching buck converter results switching at 10 MHz and gives a breakdown of the converter losses. It will demonstrate the unmatched high frequency performance capability currently available using eGaN^® FETs and also highlight the current limitations to pushing to even higher switching frequencies.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
August, 2014

Long talked about, wide bandgap gallium nitride-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) transistors are now commercially available. They are being touted for replacing silicon-based MOSFETs, which are turning out to be inefficient for many high-performance power supply designs. Recently, several suppliers of GaN-on-Si-based HEMTs and FETs have emerged in the marketplace, among them Efficient Power Conversion (EPC). To expedite the evaluation of eGAN FETs for power supply designs transitioning from silicon MOSFETs to eGaN FETs, EPC has released several development boards in the last few years.

By Ashok Bindra
Digi-Key Article Library
July 15, 2014
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With high-voltage GaN devices close to commercialization, manufacturers can, at last, look forward massive market growth.

Compound Semiconductor
July, 2014
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This installment will address an eGaN^® FET module designed as a way for power conversion systems designers to easily evaluate the exceptional performance of gallium nitride transistors.

EEWeb
By: Alex Lidow
June, 2014

Overall, 2020 could see an estimated device market size of almost $600M, leading to approximately 580,000 x 6” wafers to be processed. Ramp-up will be quite impressive starting in 2016, at an estimated 80% CAGR through 2020, based upon a scenario where EV/HEV begins adopting GaN in 2018-2019. The power supply/PFC segment will dominate the business from 2015-2018, ultimately representing 50% of device sales. At that point, automotive will then catch-up.

Yole Development
June, 2014
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Gallium Nitride (GaN) based power devices are rapidly being adopted due to their ability to operate at frequencies and switching speeds beyond the capability of Silicon power devices.

Power Electronics Europe
By: Alex Lidow, Ph.D., Johan Strydom, Ph.D., David Reusch, Ph.D.
June, 2014