BelGaN starts GaN-Valley in Belgium.

BelGaN's vision is to become a leading 6 inch and 8 inch GaN Foundry in Belgium, at the heart of Europe, developing GaN technologies and manufacturing GaN products. Going forward an extensive and rich roadmap of new GaN technologies will be developed and qualified for the high demands of the automotive market, amongst others.

“After starting my career in Bell Labs with a Doctoral Fellowship 30 years ago, I have witnessed the success and growth of Silicon Valley by commercializing Bell Labs inventions”, said Dr. Alan Zhou, CEO of BelGaN BV, “I envision an opportunity of a lifetime to build the “GaN Valley” in Belgium by leveraging imec’s next generation GaN power device innovations with BelGaN team’s more than 10 years of GaN technologies development and more than 30 years of automotive semiconductor manufacturing experiences”.   

Dr. Marnix Tack, CTO and VP Business Development at BelGaN, states: “GaN is a new generation of semiconductor material for power devices that enables more energy-efficient and faster charging, higher power density and greater energy savings for mobile, industrial, electrical vehicle and renewable energy markets. The global market for GaN power chips is currently estimated at around $100 million per year and is expected to accelerate to more than $1 billion per year within the next 5 years”.

Rob Willems, General Manager and VP Operations of BelGaN BV, noted: “We are proud to announce the start of BelGaN, a new and exciting chapter in the history of our semiconductor company in Belgium. The 400+ current employees will remain on board. In addition, BelGaN is planning to expand and hire a variety of extra profiles from operators to engineers. GaN power chips will be a game changer in the electric automotive and many other sectors and an important step towards a more sustainable future.”

Within a few years, the site in Oudenaarde will be transformed from a Silicon site to a GaN site. This will give an innovation-driven growth boost to the region and provide short- and long-term employment opportunities in Oudenaarde with multiple career opportunities in R&D, operations and various service departments.

GaN-Valley targets a growing industry for electronic systems in which energy supply and usage of electrical energy will become increasingly more efficient (less energy waste), smaller, lighter and lower cost. BelGaN and GaN-Valley are driven by energy and climate mega-trends on increased electrification for higher sustainability and carbon neutrality (solar- and wind-energy, electric cars etc.), at affordable energy costs. E.g. according to industry experts, every GaN device shipped would save 4kg CO2 compared to its Silicon counterpart.

BelGaN builds on:

• The entrepreneurial spirit, knowledge and long term experience in R&D and production of automotive semiconductors of the teams in Oudenaarde.
• The presence of imec in Leuven, a global leader in research and innovation in GaN technologies.
• An existing and growing ecosystem in GaN research (including universities), product development (e.g. multiple start-ups/scale-ups), suppliers (e.g. GaN substrates) etc.
• The European automotive industry and other nearby and global markets.
• Flemish, Belgian and European efforts in the context of the European Chips Act, Green Deal, and industrial innovation and transformation.

GaN power chips.

The BelGaN team and site, until recently part of onsemi and once started as MIETEC, has been building expertise in the automotive sector since 1983 with the production of 'high-end semiconductors'. Today they opt for innovation and are taking an important step towards a solid and sustainable future by switching to the development & production of GaN power chips.

GaN in a nutshell? It is a semiconducting material to produce power-chips that can make the supply and switching of electrical energy much faster, more efficient (wasting less energy) and smaller/lighter than when using silicon power-chips.

Main applications.

The use of GaN power chips (instead of the current silicon power chips) will reduce the energy consumption of data server farms, 5G/6G base stations, etc. by 20-30%. This will lead to a significant reduction of carbon emissions worldwide, but will also significantly reduce the operational costs of these installations.

There are many applications in automotive. E.g. the full deployment of GaN power chips in automotive could increase the mileage (range) of hybrid and full electric cars by 20%.

GaN chips are currently already used in chargers for phones, tablets and portable computers. These GaN-based chargers are a lot smaller and charge much faster and more efficiently than their predecessors.

All kinds of electric motors (household appliances, robotics, drones, e-bikes,...) will also become much more energy-efficient due to the use of GaN chips.

In addition, GaN chips are also used in higher-quality audio, in controlling LED lighting and LIDAR sensors, and even in space.