News

High Volume ALD Solution for GaN Power Device Passivation

June 25, 2019 by Scott McMahan

Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology (OIPT) launched a plasma atomic layer deposition (ALD) high volume manufacturing (HVM) solution for the GaN power device industry called Atomfab. According to the company, the ALD system addresses fundamental challenges in the fabrication of GaN power devices.

While GaN devices are more efficient and higher performance than current technologies, GaN has inherent manufacturing yield and scalability challenges. These issues need to be addressed to deliver reliable devices at a competitive cost. One of the key challenges of GaN is providing consistently high-quality gate passivation. The company says that Atomfab delivers a solution to this with high throughput and low cost of ownership.

According to the company, excellent passivation and dielectric properties enable the demanding device performance critical for key applications.

Remote plasma provides a reproducible GaN interface. Atomfab precisely controls the plasma to protect the sensitive GaN substrate.

The high uptime and HVM platform, Atomfab delivers high throughput via a high deposition rate process for GaN power applications. It enables a significantly reduced cost per wafer by leveraging numerous innovations including a patent pending fast remote plasma source.

With SEMI standard cluster configurations and improved process controls, Oxford Instruments says Atomfab fulfills the customer needs for the latest compound semiconductor solutions.

"Atomfab provides many key benefits to our GaN device manufacturing customers including significant CoO reduction, increased yield and excellent film quality & device performance. For many years Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology has been known as the go to supplier for compound semiconductor plasma solutions. We've leveraged that knowledge onto a HVM platform to ensure optimum devices are produced all day, every day," said Klaas Wisniewski, Strategic Business Development Director, OIPT.

"We've been highly commended for our unique plasma ALD solutions and have listened to our HVM customers to take these solutions to the next level. We are happy to announce that Atomfab provides these HVM solutions to our customers," Mike Gansser-Potts, Managing Director, OIPT stated.