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Analysis of GaAs and GaN Industry
Update Time : 2019-08-19 View : 4105
Semiconductor raw materials have undergone three stages of development: the first stage is the first generation of semiconductor raw materials represented by silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge); the second stage is represented by compounds such as GaAs and InP; the third stage is broadband semiconductor raw materials such as GaN, SiC and ZnSe. Mainly.

The third generation semiconductor materials have wide bandwidth, high breakdown voltage, good voltage and high temperature resistance, so they are more suitable for manufacturing high frequency, high temperature and high power radio frequency components.
Compounds have emerged since the second generation of semiconductor materials, which have been widely used in the field of semiconductors due to their excellent properties.
For example, GaAs has excellent physical performance advantages in the field of high power transmission, and is widely used in mobile phones, wireless local area networks, optical fiber communications, satellite communications, satellite positioning and other fields.
GaN has the advantages of low conduction loss and high current density, which can significantly reduce power loss and heat dissipation load. It can be used in frequency converter, voltage regulator, transformer, wireless charging and other fields.
SiC is widely used in power conversion devices such as AC-DC converters because of its excellent performance under high temperature, high voltage and high frequency conditions.
Tomorrow's Star-GaN
GaN is the most promising compound semiconductor in the future. Compared with high-frequency processes such as GaAs and InP, the output power of GaN-based components is higher, and the frequency characteristics of GaN are better than those of LDMOS and SiC.
Most Sub 6GHz cellular networks will use GaN components, because LDMOS cannot afford such high frequency, and GaAs is not ideal for high power applications.
In addition, because higher frequencies will reduce the coverage of each base station, more transistors need to be installed, which will lead to the rapid expansion of the GaN market.
GaN component output currently accounts for about 20% of the total market, and Yole predicts that its share will rise to more than 50% by 2025.
(Data Source: Yole; Figure: Southwest Securities) Market Proportion Distribution of Different Materials
GaN HEMT has become a candidate technology for power amplifier of large base stations in the future. At present, it is estimated that about 1.5 million new base stations will be built every year in the world. In the future, 5G network will supplement smaller and more densely distributed micro-base stations, which will stimulate the demand for GaN components.
In addition, the defense market has been the main driver of GaN development in the past few decades and is now being used in a new generation of air and ground radars.
(Data source: Qorvo; figure: Southwest Securities)
In the field of GaN RF components, leading manufacturers include Sumitomo Electrician of Japan, Kerui of America, Qorvo, RFHIC of Korea, etc. GaN generation factories are stable (3105. TW), Sanan Optoelectronics and so on.
The Foundation Stone of Mobile Phone-GaAs
As one of the most mature semiconductor compounds, GaAs is the cornerstone of power amplifier (PA) in smartphone components.
According to Strategy Analytics data, the global GaAs component market (including IDM factory component output value) in 2018 reached a record high of 8.87 billion US dollars, and the market concentration was high. The top four manufacturers accounted for 73.4%, respectively Skyworks (32.3%), Qorvo (26%), Broadcom (9.1%) and Steady (6%).
(Data source: Strategy Analytics; Giant Web Mapping)
As for the GaAs wafer substitution market, it will be $750 million in 2018, of which the stable market accounts for 71.1%, making it the world's largest GaAs wafer substitution factory.
(Data source: Strategy Analytics; Giant Web Mapping)
Because GaAs has the high power and high linearity required by carrier aggregation and MIMO technology, GaAs will remain the mainstream technology in the frequency band below 6 GHz. In addition, GaAs has some applications in automotive electronics and military fields.
Summarizing the excellent high frequency characteristics of these III-V compound semiconductor modules, they have long been regarded as the first choice for wireless applications in space science and technology.
With the explosive demand of broadband wireless communication and optical communication in commerce, compound semiconductor process technology is more widely used in high frequency, high power, low noise wireless products and photoelectric components. At the same time, it has spread from handheld wireless communication to 5G infrastructure and optical communication technology development under the trend of Internet of Things.

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