Siltronic ramps up GaN wafer activities with Aixtron system

The AIX G5+ C system is fully automated and equipped with in-situ cleaning and a cassette-to-cassette transfer module for epitaxial stability and low defect ratios. The Planetary Reactor includes AIXTRON’s Auto-Feed Forward (AFF) individual on-wafer temperature control and has an 8x150-mm and 5x200-mm configuration. The system will be shipped to the customer in the fourth quarter of this year. Siltronic will use the additional epitaxy reactor to strengthen its position for the emerging GaN-on-Si market. The AIX G5+ C will be used by Siltronic for the production of 150 and 200 mm Gallium Nitride-on-Silicon (GaN-on-Si) epi wafer for Radio Frequency (RF) and power applications. “The GaN-on-Si market is an important future growth field. We have been very active early on within the GaN Power Program of imec, the research institute for nanoelectronics, to provide our customers with leading edge performance. To position ourselves competitively in this market, we need a reactor which allows us to deliver our customers with the best performance epi-wafers while ramping up volume at lowest costs. We see the AIX G5+ C as the ideal solution in this regard both for GaN Power and RF devices to serve the growing applications and megatrends. The use of GaN-on-Si technology also makes a central contribution to improving the energy balance through decarbonization,” says Dr. Christoph von Plotho, CEO of Siltronic AG, in a press release. “The GaN-on-Si technology has made impressive breakthrough in the last years and devices are rapidly gaining acceptance into both consumer and industrial products for power and RF application. The AIX G5+ C is a fully mature platform dedicated to these advanced applications, and it’s fantastic that we can accompany our customers to unlock these new markets,” adds Dr. Felix Grawert, President of AIXTRON.