Penn State nhận được khoản tài trợ 3 triệu đô la của DARPA cho dự án GaN-on-silicon với Northrop Grumman
News: Microelectronics
12 December 2024
Penn State gains $3m DARPA grant for GaN-on-silicon project with Northrop Grumman
Penn State is to receive $3m from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of a larger grant awarded to defense, aerospace and technology company Northrop Grumman. The joint project aims to develop a novel method for integrating gallium nitride (GaN) with silicon substrates, since GaN provides superior performance and faster switching speeds for power-intensive applications while silicon offers scalability and affordability. This hybrid approach can lead to more efficient power electronics with lower production costs, suiting high-demand applications like electric vehicles, power electronics and data centers, where efficiency and durability are critical.
“Silicon is the common platform for microelectronics but it is challenging to combine new semiconductor materials with silicon,” says Joan Redwing, distinguished professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Penn State Materials Research Institute’s (MRI) Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium, a US National Science Foundation Materials Innovation Platform and national user facility. “To overcome this, we need new approaches to densely integrate advanced materials with silicon,” she adds. “Our work with Northrup Grumman is designed to explore integrating gallium nitride directly onto silicon using two-dimensional materials as interlayers.”
To achieve this, with the DARPA grant Penn State will work with Northrup Grumman to develop heterogeneous integration using 2D materials that are one to a few atoms thick, such as molybdenum disulfide and gallium selenide, as seed layers to grow GaN on industry-compatible silicon (001), which is the preferred crystal orientation used in existing semiconductor manufacturing. A seed layer provides a template or foundation that influences the structure, orientation and quality of the material grown on top.
“The current approach to gallium nitride-on-silicon integration has too many drawbacks, from increased thermal resistance to device fabrication challenges on silicon (001),” says Joshua Robinson, professor of materials science and engineering and Penn State’s principal investigator on the DARPA project. “By using 2D materials as seed layers, we aim to eliminate these issues and develop a direct route to integrating gallium nitride-on-silicon with improved performance compared to current technologies. This could directly impact manufacturing costs and enable market entry into energy-efficient devices.”
The project will leverage Penn State’s infrastructure for growing and characterizing 2D materials and wide-bandgap semiconductors. “This program allows us to demonstrate that 2D materials could be key to enabling advances in 3D semiconductors,” Robinson says. “We’re combining our expertise in 2D research with the real-world need for improved semiconductor performance, setting the stage for years of innovation in heterogeneous integration.”
The equipment and methodologies developed through this grant will be available to other researchers through MRI’s user facilities, Robinson says, with the goal of fostering collaboration and innovation among a variety of partners.
