Denis Marcon

Denis Marcon received a M.S. degree from the University of Padova in 2006. Subsequently, he received the degree of Doctor in Engineering (Ph. D.) from the Catholic University of Leuven and imec with the thesis entitled “Reliability study of power gallium nitride based transistors” in 2011. He is leading author or co-author of more than 50 journal papers or international conference contributions.

After his Ph.D. graduation, he has been leading projects aiming to develop GaN HEMTs for several applications (RF and power switching). Thereafter, he has joined the business development team of Imec where he was directly responsible for the partnerships with imec in the field of GaN power electronics as well as on dedicated development and manufacturing of Si-based devices, MEMS, sensors and micro-systems,

Today he is the General Manager of Innoscience Europe (subsidiary of Innoscience) and he is directly responsible for Innoscience’s GaN business in Europe.

Mass Manufacturing 8-inch GaN-on-Si Power Devices: the Next Generation of Power Switching Technology

Power conversion systems are all around us and they are responsible, for example, for converting the AC power coming from the grid to a continuous power (DC) to charge-up batteries. Or, they convert high voltage DC (e.g. 48V) to a low voltage DC (e.g. 5V or 1V) needed to run electronics.

Any power conversion needs to be performed effectively so energy (and thus money) is not wasted in heat.

GaN-based power transistors have proven to outperform standard Si-based transistors in both AC-DC and DC-DC applications thus representing the next generation of power switching devices. GaN-based power conversion systems are more efficient, more compact and lighter than to what is possible with traditional Silicon devices.

The GaN’s power device market is booming and yet we believe that their penetration was so far limited due to a restricted supply of GaN device production at a competitive price point and in mass volume.

In this talk, we will present Innoscience’s 8-inch GaN-on-Si e-mode technology and how we tackled the two points above by building up two large 8-inch fabs fully dedicated to the (mass) production of GaN-on-Si power devices.

We will also discuss that to bring GaN power devices into mainstream high-volume end-products, including mobile phones, only a true integrated device manufacturer with high volume 8-inch internal manufacturing fully focused on GaN is necessary.

We will conclude the talk by giving an overview of applications where Innoscience’s GaN devices (InnoGaNTM) have been used and the benefit of using InnoGaNTM transistors instead of traditional Silicon devices.

Also a panelist for the ISES ME Day 1 Panel Discussion: “Semiconductor Leaders – Mindset of Creating a Global Leading Semiconductor Organisation”