Atomera, a semiconductor materials and technology licensing company, propels a new approach to GaN-on-Silicon that addresses a key performance barrier limiting its use in mainstream RF applications.
Today, high-performance RF GaN devices are typically built on silicon carbide substrates, which provide excellent performance but remain costly and difficult to scale.
Silicon offers a lower-cost, more scalable foundation with the potential to support larger wafer sizes and greater compatibility with standard silicon manufacturing; however, GaN-on-Silicon has historically underperformed in RF applications due to parasitic channel losses that reduce efficiency, especially at high frequencies.
Atomera’s MST® technology reduces these losses, helping close the performance gap, and offers exceptional linearity, enabling lower-cost GaN solutions for 5G, future 6G, and other high-frequency RF devices.
“Atomera’s latest GaN-on-Si devices show a substantial reduction in parasitic interface charge, by more than an order of magnitude, and our RF characterization of the first MST-enabled samples confirms a significant reduction in RF losses,” said Mostafa Emam, Founder & CEO at Incize.
“Beyond the small-signal improvements, the large-signal results are particularly compelling. The best-performing MST samples exhibit outstanding linearity and power handling. This linearity benefit extends into the high-power regime, approaching performance levels typically associated with advanced RF SOI technologies. For GaN-on-Si, these results represent a very exciting step forward.”
Atomera’s approach, MST, introduces a thin, oxygen-modified layer near the surface of the silicon wafer, creating a more favorable platform for GaN growth and making silicon a more viable foundation for high-performance RF devices. This controlled layer modifies the silicon lattice structure and helps block the diffusion of electrical dopants, improving crystal quality at the GaN/silicon interface.
“We’re fundamentally changing the economics of GaN. Atomera’s MST is removing barriers to GaN-on-Silicon-based RF systems, unlocking breakthrough RF performance on low-cost silicon substrates,” said Scott Bibaud, president and CEO of Atomera. “Successfully overcoming challenges like the parasitic channel positions Atomera to achieve a competitive advantage in GaN-on-Silicon, which we believe will provide growth opportunities for Atomera in advanced RF and power electronics.”
In Atomera’s testing, MST enabled more than a 10x reduction in parasitic channel charge, reducing a key mechanism of RF power loss and supporting improved high-frequency GaN device performance. Furthermore, the test data has proven that MST will allow devices to handle significant power while maintaining signal quality, or linearity, under stress.
“We are delighted by the recent RF test data from Incize,” said Robert Mears, Founder & CTO of Atomera. “Linearity is a top care-about for RF designers, and the new data shows MST GaN-on-Silicon achieving both the ultra-low RF losses and linearity metrics of advanced trap-rich RF SOI. At the benchmark input power of 30mW, the linearity is exceptional, 1000x better than the GaN-on-silicon reference wafer. The MST benefit extends all the way to 10W input power.”
