News: Microelectronics
13 December 2021
Transphorm co-founder & CTO Umesh Mishra awarded IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal
Transphorm Inc of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, CA, USA — which designs and manufactures JEDEC- and AEC-Q101-qualified gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs) for high-voltage power conversion applications — says that its co-founder & chief technology officer Umesh Mishra Ph.D. was awarded the IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal. The honor is given to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding contributions to material and device science and technology, including practical application. Mishra was recognized for his contributions to the development of GaN-based electronics. This is the second IEEE award received by him, the first being the IEEE David Sarnoff Award for the development of GaN electronics.
In 1996, Mishra co-founded Nitres Inc, the first start-up company to develop GaN LEDs and RF transistors. Nitres was acquired by Cree (now Wolfspeed) in 2000. He continued researching and developing GaN-based solutions, expanding focus to high-voltage power conversion applications and, in 2007, co-founded Transphorm. Throughout his business career, Mishra has also served in the academic field as a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he has been a director of several GaN research centers.
With Mishra as CTO, engineering achievements at Transphorm include being the first to offer JEDEC and AEC-Q101 (automotive)-qualified devices; owning the largest IP portfolio with more than 1000 patents and applications covering core areas of the GaN process end-to-end; and offering the broadest device portfolio across the power spectrum (45W to 10+kW), it is claimed.
Transphorm’s innovations also extend to GaN in the RF space. Based on Mishra’s work with his UCSB R&D team, the firm is currently developing nitrogen polar (N-polar) GaN epitaxial wafers. N-polar GaN holds significant promise for the continued advancement of GaN-based electronics, particularly RF/mm-wave applications, says Transphorm.
All this led to Transphorm going public in 2020 (the first pure-play GaN manufacturer to do so). The firm has grown product revenue sequentially for seven consecutive quarters, and targets 200% annual product revenue growth through 2023.
