Sign on to revolutionize the use of gallium nitride in Vermont
Let’s get millions in GaN innovation funds to Vermont businesses
It’s about to become less expensive and greener to make everything from electric planes to radar stations and battery chargers.
It starts with gallium nitride (GaN). In the next decade, it’s set to overtake silicon as the semiconductor substrate of choice for high power and high frequency applications.
Here in Vermont, we have an opportunity to accelerate that transition with over 75 million in federal CHIPS Act funds.
This money will fund critical product development resources for the Tech Hub community and support GaN development projects at local businesses.
That’s because Vermont is one of 31 Tech Hubs, known as Vermont-GaN, or V-GaN for short, chosen by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA).
But the funds aren’t a guarantee. We need to show the EDA why GaN innovation would be a game-changer for our state.
GlobalFoundries, a founding member of the Tech Hub along with the State of Vermont and the University of Vermont, is the driving force.
They’ve discovered a new way to use GaN to:
Lower your production costs by reducing the number of chips on a GaN circuit board by up to 5X.
Further increase your profitability by decreasing production time.
Replace the need to buy GaN internationally, creating thousands of jobs in Vermont.
This all adds up to greener, more profitable local manufacturing.
Join the V-GaN campaign now to show your support.
Learn More
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Have an idea for a GaN project? Send us a proposal. We expect funds to be available on an ongoing basis for Vermont businesses.
GlobalFoundries is ushering in an order-of-magnitude improvement in how we can leverage the power of gallium nitride. They can do that because the foundry has a deep history in complex multi-substrate devices that few foundries do.
Douglas Merrill
University of Vermont, Regional Innovation Officer
By being a leader in introducing GaN, we expect to have a competitive edge in this area…we’re counting on the industry moving to many products that use GaN and there being a high demand.
Scott Johnson
GlobalFoundries, Senior Director of Technology Development
GaN is short for Gallium Nitride, a semiconductor compound. Semiconductor devices are built on substrates, think of the substrate as the dough disk below a pizza. Semiconductor devices that are built on GaN substrates have different properties than devices built on the more common silicon substrates, and these properties give them significant advantages in many applications.
GaN based semiconductors are in a class of materials called “Wide Bandgap Semiconductors” These materials can handle much higher voltage differences across them. This property makes them ideal for power conversion and motor controller applications. The first consumer product use of GaN devices is in the much smaller, but much faster wall chargers that mobile phone makers introduced about three years ago. Power devices made on GaN are smaller, more efficient, more powerful, and less expensive than equivalent devices made on traditional silicon.
The second property that helps GaN devices excel is known as ‘High Electron Mobility.’ Simply put, this means that the electrons in the atoms making up the semiconductor are not as tightly bound to their atoms as they would be in a silicon device. This property provides two valuable advantages. First, it results in more efficient transmission, meaning less heat production and higher electrical efficiency. Second, it means that GaN devices are capable of higher switching speeds, meaning that they can be turned on and off much faster than a traditional semiconductor. This makes them valuable for radio frequency (RF) devices like amplifiers and switches.
The US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Agency launched the Tech Hub Program in 2023 to strengthen U.S. economic and national security with investments in regions across the country to make them globally competitive in the technologies and industries of the future. The program’s 31 Hubs will bring together diverse private, public, and academic partners into a collaborative consortium focused on driving inclusive regional growth.
Tech Hubs can apply for up to $75 million in grant funding by submitting proposals for projects in any of four eligible activities: workforce development, business and entrepreneur development, technology development and maturation, and related infrastructure activities. The Tech Hub will work with partner organizations to create projects and write proposals for up to eight projects by February 29, 2024. All projects must help the Tech Hub move toward fulfilling its mission. Organizations interested in creating or participating in a project should read the “Phase 2 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)” on this website.
If your organization has a project idea or believes it may be a useful partner in a project, please fill out our ‘Contact me’ sheet and we will follow up with you shortly.
