News: Suppliers
10 July 2024
Qromis recognized with Frost & Sullivan award
Qromis Inc of Santa Clara, CA, USA (founded in 2015) has received the Frost & Sullivan 2024 Global Enabling Technology Leadership Award. Frost & Sullivan presents this award each year to a company that develops a pioneering technology that enhances current products and enables new product and application development.
Qromis manufactures patented QST substrates that are used to develop GaN devices. CMOS fab-friendly and SEMI standard thickness QST ensures compatibility with standard semiconductor manufacturing processes, says the firm.
QST substrate technology has an embedded high thermal conductivity and high mechanical strength core material which has a closely matched coefficient of thermal expansion to those of GaN/AlGaN epitaxial layers over a wide temperature range, enabling wafer breakage / stress-free, scalable, low cost and high performance GaN power device manufacturing on 200 mm and 300 mm mainstream CMOS production platforms. According to the firm, these features enable not only mainstream lateral GaN power devices but also the long awaited commercial vertical GaN power switches and rectifiers suitable for high voltage and high current applications presently dominated by Si IGBTs and SiC power FETs and diodes.
QST, which is assembled and manufactured in traditional CMOS fabs, is similar to mainstream silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates in terms of manufacturing, cost, and the utilization of energy efficient semiconductor process tools with a more than 98% yield and a process cycle time of less than 7 days.
One of the critical features of QST technology is the enablement of high yielding and low cost GaN epitaxy growth process via robust wafer shape control, epitaxy uniformity and elimination of costly and complex strain management layers which result in reduction of epitaxy growth time by 50%, says the firm.
Qromis collaborates with global partners to leverage their manufacturing platforms, securing the scalability and widespread adoption of QST and allowing GaN power devices to exceed the 650 V threshold to 2000 V and beyond on 200 mm and 300 mm diameters while maintaining high performance and reliability. In addition to GaN power electronics, the technology is positioned to enable advancements in GaN RF and microLED applications, and all applications can be manufactured on the same platform for business expansion, economies of scale and sustainability, the firm states.
"Frost & Sullivan commends Qromis for its innovative QST, which effectively addresses scalability, cost and reliability challenges in the GaN semiconductors market. QST will play a crucial role in expediting the commercialization of highly reliable GaN devices while showcasing versatility in applications and demonstrating scalability for future advancements," said Prabhu Karunakaran, industry principal for the semiconductors program at Frost & Sullivan.
Qromis continues to expand its technology roadmap with the transition of its process technology platform to 300 mm QST wafers, with sampling starting in second half of 2024. This move aims to further enhance cost reduction and address access challenges to the most advanced 300 mm device manufacturing processes and tools (such as high-resolution lithography). This is critical for next-generation GaN power, RF and microLED applications, says the firm.
"Qromis is building on its early commercialization success by consistently demonstrating efforts to innovate, create, and focus on diverse applications, accelerating GaN penetration in the power, RF, and microLED markets. Consequently, the company is well-positioned to experience continued growth above that of the GaN devices market," says Karunakaran.
