STMicroelectronics and Innoscience have signed a joint development agreement (JDA) to develop and manufacture gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si).
Under the terms of the agreement, Innoscience will use ST’s front-end manufacturing capacity outside China for its GaN wafers, while ST will have access to Innoscience’s front-end manufacturing capacity in China for its own GaN wafers.
Headquartered in Suzhou in the southern Jiangsu province of China, Innoscience is the world's largest integrated device manufacturer dedicated to gallium nitride technology.
GaN is a wide-bandgap material and can handle higher amounts of power than silicon. As a result, GaN-based chips can be more efficient and durable than their silicon counterparts and are becoming more widely used across various industries, particularly for power electronics applications.
“ST and Innoscience are both integrated device manufacturers, and with this agreement we will leverage this model to the benefit of our customers globally,” said Marco Cassis, president, analog, power and discrete, MEMS and sensors of STMicroelectronics “First, ST will be accelerating its roadmap in GaN power technology to complement its silicon and silicon carbide offering. Second, ST will be able to leverage a flexible manufacturing model to serve customers globally.”
Dr. Weiwei Luo, chairman and founder of Innoscience, added: “GaN technology is essential to improve electronics, creating smaller and more efficient systems which save electric power, lower cost, and reduce CO2 emissions. Innoscience pioneered mass production of 8-inch GaN technology and has shipped over 1 billion GaN devices into multiple markets, and we are very excited to move into strategic collaboration with ST.”
This is not the first time STMicroelectronics has invested in materials that could serve as alternatives to conventional silicon.
In June 2024, the company announced it would be investing €5 billion ($5.43bn) in building a high-volume 200mm silicon carbide (SiC) chip manufacturing facility for power devices and modules and test and packaging in Catania, Italy.
In February, ST launched a new data center photonics chip. Dubbed the PIC100 and developed in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the chip supports incoming 800Gbps and 1.6Tbps optical interconnects across all workloads, including artificial intelligence.
