The Gallium Nitride Revolutions 

slight correction : it's not mA/h but mA.h, that's energy (not exactly joules, that would be W.s, but for batteries it's the advancement of the reaction so combine that with the battery's potential you get energy)

In 2020, I had a chance to do research in GaN-based optoelectronics devices for photonics integrated circuits. The grand idea was since GaN was already a promising candidate for power electronics and it is a direct bandgap material, it might be possible to realize an all-in-one solution for everything electronics in the GaN platform (kind of). Another charm of GaN is its second-harmonic generation capability means that you can double your light frequency by passing it through carefully engineered GaN-based waveguides. I got my degree from an Indonesian university. At that time, we had a joint research project with French universities and we also sent a few PhD students to learn from them. However, my alma mater is not pursuing this research topic anymore, whilst the French researchers are still researching this very topic.

We received some new generation servers last week and they came with 2400W power supplies that are the size of my hand, in volume maybe half of a normal sized ATX PSU. We where floored at how small they are for 2400w, GAN is amazing. Also they are titanium efficiency rated and made by some Chinese vendor we had never heard of before. Edit: they turn out to be the world's first 100W/in3 density psu's

While Nakamura et alia were no doubt critical to blue LEDs, it’s sort of sad to see Theodoros Moustakas passed over as essentially the co-inventor of them still. He did publish the buffet later prices for high quality GaN first, and it was integral for the blue LED. That said, he and Nakamura seem to understand the accolades are outside of their control and remain in friendly contact, so really good on both of them.

7:47 - The units of battery capacity is expressed in amps x hours. If you work through the units it's the number of coulombs of charge it holds. Amps / hour would reduce to coulombs / hour^2 , which is some kind of acceleration unit

Great video, Jon. My dissertation from 2004 was about GaN / AlGaN HEMTs. At the time, we were only set up to grow on 2" substrates of sapphire and SiC. High quality 2" SiC substrates were $4500 apiece, which added significant cost. To dial in optimal conditions, we'd use sapphire, but if we wanted to make the best device possible, we'd use SiC due to relatively low lattice mismatch to GaN and high thermal conductivity.

xzibit at 11:10 is honestly the best meme I've ever seen just slipped into a video. The slight pause at the end of the sentence after he fades in. It's all just so beautifully done. You do this a good bit, but this one in particular was just top tier. The way you're able to slip stuff like that into genuinely informative content gives me a little bit of hope for humanity. It might not all be lost after all.

I have a 1940s Selenium rectifier I bought at a surplus store in silicon valley years ago, and it's amazing to think how silicon made the modern equipment just a tiny component, but now with these future materials, components will continue shrinking to amazing degrees.

While I was listening to this video my spouse walked in and was actually curious about what was being discussed to my surprise (they are usually bored to tears) I have to say that the sandwich analogy caught her attention as she kept listening and we were discussing the build and possibly of GaN use in the future and why it was important I appreciate your view on this, it's always nice to simplify the process to let others understand the whole process visually. I'm usually trying to use this for myself and I usually try and use the description of telling a parable to make sense of remembering. Kudos on the video!

Thank you for the fantastic content, you ability to introduce these concepts and then show how they are interlinked and inter-related with real world applications is a tremendous feat.

I did a presentation on GaN for my MSEE. It's so nice to see Asianometry talking about this. Going foreward, in power electronics SiC and GaN are going to dominate. Better start using these in your designs ASAP.

Great video as always. I just graduated in EE and CPE and am starting a job at a company that specializes in GaN and SiC. I’m excited to learn more about these new types of semiconductors

Sapphire is just pure, doped, crystalline alumina. Semiconductor grade sapphire is expensive not because it is a gemstone, but because of the purity and quality of the crystals. In fact, sapphire for these uses are 100 % synthetic.

The new GAN FETs series of Power MOSFETS from Nexperia is just some SciFi madness. 100A Ids and 650Vds max in a surface of 3x2mm, seriously that density of power is in another level thanks to this matterial.

Size of batteries is measured in Ah (ampere hours). Not ampere per hours. It's like Wh (watt hours). Ampere is a measure of elemental charges (electrons) per time. So amp hours is a measure of charges.

Oh, more Asianometry? Please, yes!

8:13 The transition beGaN. I'll see myself out now. Cheers.

Thank you for discussing GaN semiconductors. It's arguably the most important semiconductor in development and use right now.

I’m using a GaN power bank right now and I’m amazed by how fast it charges itself and charges my devices. Really game changing at a larger scale

This channel makes me so happy. Learning about the progress that we're making, and the people/teams involved in making it happen is uplifting. Thank you so much for making these videos.

Just wanted to express my appreciation for your high quality content! Your videos mention real world applications, explain the significance of a given topic, and are concise, all while being informative and easily understood by regular people. Truly outstanding work, as always!

I cannot understand all that is contained in your productions, but I always learn something. Thanks Jon

Man, you have the very best content on youtube, Thank you for doing that! I used to dream of the internet being a source of endless knowledge, and you keep this dream alive!

I remember in the mid-late 90s, reading an article in the high school library about the blue LEDs about to hit the market, and what they were going to make possible. The example they gave that I remember is large stadium TVs with the promise of LED consumer TVs at some future point, and some talk of white light and how blue is absolutely required for RGB, hence the B..

Great segment on an important topic that doesn't really get much visibility. I first heard of GaN back in the mid-1990s, with respect to the development of AESA radar (active electronically scanned array: believe the Japanese were early adopters, with air, naval and land radar systems then). So, was good to get a rundown on developments around GaN.

Amazing and clearly informing video as always. Didn't know or even imagine the slimmer chargers use other type of substance. Well done! Greetings from Latvia.

This channel became my insight into world of new techniques. Thank you and keep it this way please.

yooooooo tyvm for this summary as a engineer we dont every shut up about Gallium and optics in pc we are tired of waiting cant wait to see them in everything

I work in the industry, but I am still impressed by your insights. Keep it up! You're doing incredible work here!

Electron saturation velocity go brr.

WOW! Same story as gallium arsenide. Faster switching times, early adoption by the military (involved in some of those) and hard to work with. In the meantime, silicon improved fast and overtook gallium arsenide because of its lower cost and larger scale. I recall once a relative of mine asking about a stock tip in a gallium arsenide company. I told him the story I have just related, and he did not invest. Good thing, since that company went under not long after. Gallium arsenide may well have a niche place in the industry, but I expect that is all.

Please don't eat sandwiches where the bread has been doped.

Hey Asian, I just found your channel today and I really enjoy it. You have a good clear speaking voice and present material in an easy to follow way. Great job!

Gallium supply is difficult to increase because it's production is firmly tied to other, seemingly unrelated markets that take priority over it. It's a byproduct of zinc and copper mining, there are no gallium mines. If you want more gallium, you first need to want more copper and zinc. If that doesn't happen, you have supply problems.

I really enjoy your videos, and you do a really good job explaining these concepts! Thank you!

Usually parts of your vids go over my head but I can understand sandwiches, nice!

GaN is also demonstrating significant advantages in sensor devices such as AESA radars.

Wow! Amazingly informative video. It combined all the different aspects of GaN industrialization growth. Thanks for making these contents... Keep up the good job :)

i used to play laser tag at a local spot in my home town. this was before the blue led was either invented, or maybe it was invented but not yet commercialized. three teams, red, orange/yellow and green. the orange yellow was quite orange and in thick fog to many it looked more red, and the red looked dim in the fog, mixing with white spot lights, looked sort of orange at times. being on the green team was good, because you never had to worry about shooting your own team in poor conditions ;) i was no longer going there when they got the blue leds, but that would have made it way better when i was going there.

I am not an expert in this, but I invested in a power-electronics startup a few years back. Through them, I met one of their suppliers, which was a quite innovative startup in the WBG semiconductor space. The guys I know in the industry believe that SiC will likely continue to dominate in high-wattage applications. From what I've seen, GaN has a sweet spot in miniaturization of relatively low wattage applications like phone chargers. For applications like EV inverters, EV-charger rectifiers, and other high-wattage power-distribution applications, SiC has advantages due to its superior thermal conductivity and (I believe) durability. Both these companies have since been acquired by large multi-nationals, and I haven't followed R&D in this space as closely in the past 12 months or so. In any case, I believe that there will continue to be advances in WBG semiconductors that will continue to enable companies to miniaturize power distribution products, make switching of high-wattage loads more efficient, and enable improved electrification of mobility and energy storage. I think GaN will be just part of this WBG semiconductor story.

GaN is some bloody amazing stuff. I have a 4-port USB charging station that uses conventional MOSFETs and can deliver up to 25 watts, but I also have a 4-port USB charger that uses GaN MOSFETs and can deliver 65 watts in less than half the volume. It's amazing.

*_"GaN Charger"_* sounds an awful lot like *_"Game Changer"._*

It'll be interesting to see the impact of GaN in lightweight power systems, eg power tools, drones, etc. Re: synthetic sapphire, it's cost as a semiconductor substrate cannot possibly be tied to it being a precious gemstone. I know next to nothing about the field, but I do know that low quality synthetic sapphire is ubiquitous throughout mechanical industries, where it sees uses ranging from precision bearings through abrasive compound.

@ 2:36 Silicon carbide being an indirect band-gap semiconductor, and silicon also being indirect band-gap are not related, they are completely different materials. For instance, gallium phosphide is indirect while the nitride is direct.

I keep forgetting Canada's role in Semiconductors, it would be interesting if you did a video on the industry in Canada.

Thanks to make the history of the GaN tehcnology, his advantages and drawbacks so clear. We'll see if someone invent a process to mass production of GaN gallet.

Sapphire is just aluminum oxide. The "precious gemstones" have a few impurities such as magnesium, chromium, or iron. It's hard to see why it's expensive.

Synthetic sapphire (ruby, etc.), being aluminum oxide, is cheap to make. The jewel bearings in watches made with it are a few cents each. Perhaps it is the needed crystal quality that is difficult to get.

The info was comprehensive! trying to learn some knowledge of the GaN and this is brilliant contents!

I’ve recently run across your channel and love the detailed content. Thank you

Another slight correction: they forgot to mention one other American Physicist who greatly contributed to the GaN blue LED. Some people literally hogged the credit for this great invention.

Growth of leds is the number 1 factor for the insanely high cost of microled tvs. Each 4k microled tv requires 25 million leds, not to mention the number of leds that are defective and have to be replaced. This means you will need 100s of sapphire wafers just to make a single microled tv.

oh That's really fricking cool it is the first time something close related to my lab is cited. I work in a lab in Brazil and we make the semiconductor part of sensors for the aeronautic(I work in research and have no idea how it is currently made). We work manly with optoelectronics like solar-cells and medium infrared. My sector is trying to make the gallium-nitride semiconductors by Atomic layer deposition(basically you turn the compound into a gas and condenses slowly over a surface) and we have achieved enough success in the process that the semiconductor can be successfully used on solar-panels but are yet good enough to be used as sensors or for electronics. It is insanely hard to make them the concentration of the gas and the layer numbers affect the crystal and this create defects and the really sad part is that we can't adjust instantly(but the changes happen fast) we need either better equipment or better control of what we already have. My main job here is to compile the data, and control the equipment with the instructions provided by my 2 mentors on the project they are the ones that analyze the data(I don't think I am capable of doing so even if I am almost graduating one has a phd and the other is actually doing this as his phd project).

With dual gate GaN, power supply manufacturers can throw away the bridge rectifier and the 60% efficient 1920-vintage boost regulator and use the 2011 bridgeless PFC circuit.

I think there is a subtle misconception at 2:30. I could be wrong, but I don't think the indirect bandgap of SiC has anything to do with silicon itself having an indirect bandgap. It's a completely different material with its own electronic properties and band gap structure. That it is also an indirect band gap material is probably just a coincidence, but maybe some condensed matter QM specialist here knows different.

Great video. One thing to mention is HEMT had been used in military applications way before GaN appeared. GaAs HEMTs can provide high power and low noise at the same time. They also can operate at higher frequencies.

Great, informative an interesting video, Well done. I used to work on designing semiconductor profile plotters here in the UK, I followed some of the then very novel research projects. sapphire substrates were mainly used for radiation hardening at the time, was very interested with the growth of Gallium and then into GaN research.

Love this channel, haven't even watched the video but again it's an instant like / thumbs up . . .

Batteries are specified in mAh, which describes the number of mA they could output for 1 hour. 4300 mAh means it can output 4.3A for 1 hour. Or the same battery could output 1A for 4.3 hours.

Navitas is inside the 140 Watt Apple charger not GAN Systems.

Superb information density and coherent and lucid explanation! Your channel is extraordinary and brilliant! 😲👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏😊👍👍

Anker is my favorite brand for smartphone accessories. They're high quality and well-priced. They just work.

That outro of yours, talking fast, sounds like " job done, time for beer, im outa here"

Since many laptops now charge through USB type C, and I finally moved to a phone that also uses type C, I decided to buy a Baseus GaN 2 Pro charger, and it works for the company laptop I have, and is MUCH smaller than the power brick for its legacy circular power plug. Point being, charging our laptops with more compact GaN chargers is already the present, not the future. When will laptop makers makers do a full switch, I don't know, but having the charger be smaller is a selling point they can use.

Man you deliver

That is a nice video on this technology, thank you.

Awesome to see the Canadian Military Communications Museum in Kingston, ON @ 5:24. Do you have a connection to the area or did you just grab a random picture off the internet?

Ok where does it come from, what are the dangers of mineing it to the land and fauna, and what are the dangers of disposing of it?

Correction: primary candidate prior to GaN was not SiC for LED emitters. It was ZnSe-based semiconductors. Explanations of major competing materials are not based on freshman physics.

2:30 "... we need the blues ..." I think a BB King or Eric Clapton guitar solo would do the job.

Those guys got the Nobel Prize and that's great but for inventing a product that has been ubiquitously used in billions of products, their employer saw it as just another day on the job.

This is a shout out to old school constant current rectifiers ! Just the dial and meter is all you need...New constant voltage chargers > expensive and I think filled with those GaN chips.

Thanks for posting, great technology requires less red tape, I mean 10 mill is not a lot of money when it comes to innovation.

The revolution is constant. Life is short. Chase the action!

Another factor affecting operation at elevated temperature is the temperature at which intrinsic conduction starts to dominate over extrinsic, leading to thermal (primary) breakdown/'thermal runaway'. Would be nice to have info on this characteristic vs silicon which can be used only up to around 200C (junction temperature).

how common is gallium? and where does it come from? is there enough of it for what people are planning for?

The main thing is that GaN is suitable for military purposes. In the spirit of Alfred Nobel. Bravo.

1:00 Not all materials have a bandgap. For instance, metals and other conductors usually have no bandgap. Graphene is an example of a semiconductor with no bandgap. However, all semiconductors commonly used in the electronics industry today do have a bandgap, though the gap is small for some semiconductors. I'm not an expert, so maybe there is some technicality when you get into impure materials that endows metals with some microscopic bandgap. But I think in principle, there is literally no bandgap at all, not even a tiny one.

Thank you so much for such a great video. 👍

I remember these GaN chargers. Interesting about the DC-DC. I wonder if those tech companies will make a DC power grid, I’ve heard of HVDC in China, and I doubt the US infrastructure will change.

Gan FET power amps in HiFi are changing the game right now.

My current phone didnt include a charger, as with any flagship model. But they were not entirely cheap either, I had to buy one for $50 to enable what Samsung calls Super Fast charging 2.0. It's very convenient when you have to charge from a very low battery level and up to 75% in no time.

Thank for this dissertation on GaN 👍 Very informative. 🤔 Looks like GaN is the way forward for power electronics if they can perfect an economic way of producing larger yield wafers ?

Hopefully they can master large scale production of GaN. Because, truly industry changing tech, like this, does not come often.

Synthetic sapphire is used for wafers, so no, it's not like they're using precious gemstones here.

Thank you for this video. It explains why I have not been able to find a GaN pure sine wave inverter anywhere. I'm not sure if GaN would be a good use but I'm hoping.

Thank you for this video

This is a fun Holiday episode

The silicon carbide looks like a drawn picture of art.

I love my GaN chargers ranging from 45W all the way to 120W. They're very compact considering the amount of power they're output.

Disclaimer, I’m only a masters student in Power Electronics, so there might be some things I might be missing. Wouldn’t SiC beat GaN due to cost reasons, because SiC chips are easily created (relatively), making them cheaper in the long run. The size difference between SiC and GaN is also negligible compared to the jump from Si to SiC/GaN

Your channel is very informative and interesting Thank you .

thats was a mega power move of a video jon!.Entirely interesting, includes food and blue LEDs!! also lots 'o deep info at multi level. The kick is learning/teaching ratio is at an understandable level.."the subtle learning is empowered by repeated subtle lessons." < -i made that quote up. But... it is true for a willing learner, if a fact is to stick.. it has to be absorbed 3 times in different presentations/examples/stories each time. :)

Rod Holt must be so envious ...or proud. :)

So this displaced GaAs? I remember that being used for higher RF performance than MOSFETs, the GaAsFET, not sure if they were ever more than small signal devices though Many III-V semiconductors are possible, as an alternative to group IV (periodic 14) Paradoxically, Lead and Tin are in the same group as Silicon and Germanium but are metallic rather than semiconductor

why is there a melted gallium in the thumb if it requires 2.000 C to melts?

It’s Amp Hr NOT Amps PER Hr. It’s a measure of charge which is the integral of current over time. Current is dq/dt where q is charge.

Your videos are excellent because of the content but mostly because you don't have background music, noise, and kettledrums interfering with the narration.

Thks &; *Session 1: Silicon Carbide (SiC) vs Gallium Nitride (GaN) vs Silicon (comparison chart @2:25) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8KjADV9kC94.html End of the silicon era. Processors of the future ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-D--sSNKiVXg.html *USB-C PD Charging Explained! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-E96ahSj5-N8.html What is USB Power Delivery? - Gary Explains ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Uuh0tRLANpc.html What is USB Power Delivery ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-I4SgGl3MSJw.html

The actual measure of charge is given as Milliampere*Hr, not divided by Hour. Current Times Time equals charge, as current is a measure of charge over time.