Gallium nitride power management chips poised for impressive growth, iSuppli says
The market for gallium nitride power management semiconductors is forecast to reach $183.6 million in
revenue in 2013.
By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 3/30/2010
The market for gallium nitride (GaN) power management semiconductors is forecast to reach $183.6
million in revenue in 2013, up from essentially zero this year, due to rapid growth in the high-end server,
notebook, mobile handset and wired communication segments, market researchers at El Segundo, CA-
based iSuppli Corp. said today.
GaN is an emerging process technology for power management chips that recently moved beyond the
university-based testing phase and into the commercialization stage, and as such represents an
attractive market opportunity for suppliers to provide customers with capabilities that may be out of the
reach of present semiconductor process materials.
“iSuppli believes that during the past two years, several events have occurred that have made GaN an
up-and-coming star in the power management semiconductor world. First, the use of silicon has reached
its practical limits in power management semiconductors. Furthermore, there have been major
breakthroughs in growing GaN layers on silicon. Power designers also want to develop more efficient
systems and to update their high-voltage products to waste less electricity,” explained Marijana
Vukicevic, principal analyst for power management at iSuppli, in a statement.
Component suppliers such as International Rectifier Corp. and Efficient Power Conversions Corp.
(EPCC) have started offering GaN parts. For example, IR released its first GaN technology-based Point-
of-Load (POL) solutions in February, while EPCC is placing all its bets on GaN technology, releasing 10
power MOSFET devices this month, iSuppli noted.
The following figure is iSuppli’s forecast for GaN power management revenue for 2008 through 2013.
Source: iSuppli Corp. March 2010
GaN device adoption is expected to be driven by the improved efficiency and small form factors that the
material allows and because these benefits are in particularly high demand for portable electronic
products, including mobile PCs and smart phones. GaN devices also provide advantages for power-
hungry electronic equipment, such as enterprise servers and wired communications infrastructure gear,
iSuppli said.
Even with its advantages, iSuppli believes adoption of GaN technology for these applications in 2010
and 2011 will be slow due to the high cost of parts using the material. However, as the technology
advances and the cost of manufacturing GaN technology drops in 2012 and 2013, the technology will
begin to steal market share away from conventional MOSFETs, driver ICs and voltage regulator ICs.
The first GaN devices most likely will be in servers, which always demand high-performance devices and
often are one of the first product areas to accept new technologies that improve performance.
Over the next three years, most device volume will be driven by notebooks as the power savings and
smaller form factor delivered by GaN will be in high demand, iSuppli concluded.
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The market for gallium nitride power management semiconductors is forecast to reach $183.6 million in
revenue in 2013.
By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 3/30/2010
The market for gallium nitride (GaN) power management semiconductors is forecast to reach $183.6
million in revenue in 2013, up from essentially zero this year, due to rapid growth in the high-end server,
notebook, mobile handset and wired communication segments, market researchers at El Segundo, CA-
based iSuppli Corp. said today.
GaN is an emerging process technology for power management chips that recently moved beyond the
university-based testing phase and into the commercialization stage, and as such represents an
attractive market opportunity for suppliers to provide customers with capabilities that may be out of the
reach of present semiconductor process materials.
“iSuppli believes that during the past two years, several events have occurred that have made GaN an
up-and-coming star in the power management semiconductor world. First, the use of silicon has reached
its practical limits in power management semiconductors. Furthermore, there have been major
breakthroughs in growing GaN layers on silicon. Power designers also want to develop more efficient
systems and to update their high-voltage products to waste less electricity,” explained Marijana
Vukicevic, principal analyst for power management at iSuppli, in a statement.
Component suppliers such as International Rectifier Corp. and Efficient Power Conversions Corp.
(EPCC) have started offering GaN parts. For example, IR released its first GaN technology-based Point-
of-Load (POL) solutions in February, while EPCC is placing all its bets on GaN technology, releasing 10
power MOSFET devices this month, iSuppli noted.
The following figure is iSuppli’s forecast for GaN power management revenue for 2008 through 2013.
Source: iSuppli Corp. March 2010
GaN device adoption is expected to be driven by the improved efficiency and small form factors that the
material allows and because these benefits are in particularly high demand for portable electronic
products, including mobile PCs and smart phones. GaN devices also provide advantages for power-
hungry electronic equipment, such as enterprise servers and wired communications infrastructure gear,
iSuppli said.
Even with its advantages, iSuppli believes adoption of GaN technology for these applications in 2010
and 2011 will be slow due to the high cost of parts using the material. However, as the technology
advances and the cost of manufacturing GaN technology drops in 2012 and 2013, the technology will
begin to steal market share away from conventional MOSFETs, driver ICs and voltage regulator ICs.
The first GaN devices most likely will be in servers, which always demand high-performance devices and
often are one of the first product areas to accept new technologies that improve performance.
Over the next three years, most device volume will be driven by notebooks as the power savings and
smaller form factor delivered by GaN will be in high demand, iSuppli concluded.
Comment
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del.icio.us
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