IVWorks to transfer GaN tech to IntelliEPI
The deal will account for the Korean start-up's 2020 sales
South Korean gallium nitride (GaN) epiwafer start-up IVWorks has signed a technology transfer agreement with its US counterpart IntelliEPI, the company said.
IVWorks will supply IntelliEPI with its 8-inch GaN-on-Si (silicon) epiwafer and 6-inch GaN-on-SiC (silicon carbide) epiwafer made from its molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) equipment, the South Korean company said.
The deal is expected to account for the majority of IVWork’s sales for 2020.
IVWorks was founded in 2011. The company received its seed investment of 500 million won from Samsung Venture Investment and Songhyun Investment back in 2015. Samsung also took part in IVWork’s Series B funding round for 8 billion won last year. The epiwafer start-up has accumulated 12 billion won in funding as of last year.
IntelliEPI, founded in 1999, currently produces GaAs (gallium arsenide) and InP (indium phosphide) epiwafers __ but it doesn’t have its own technology in GaN epiwafer. The US company said it has been collaborating with IVWorks since 2018 to develop and produce GaN epiwafer, It will apply the technology to its production quickly, IntelliEPI said.
IVWorks said it will meed the demand for high quality GaN epiwafer from the system semiconductor market through the latest partnership.
GaN epiwafer is used to make GaN transistors in RF power amplifiers.
Demand for high quality RF power amplifiers is on the rise from the roll out of 5G networks. For previous generation networks, silicon-based RF power amplifiers, or laterally-diffused metal-oxide semiconductor, were mostly used.