3. Environmental aspects

Combined with a highly thermally conductive silicon carbide substrate, gallium nitride brings considerable advantages to power applications:

• five to ten times higher voltage withstand than conventional semiconductors;

• better heat dissipation.

This semiconductor can be used to produce components that combine breakdown voltage, electron mobility and high current. Applications of GaN devices dedicated to RF or EP generally lead to lower costs and energy consumption, which in turn translates into lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Beyond radiation resilience, for satellite applications, GaN devices offer unrivalled RF electrical performance compared with silicon and GaAs components. For space applications, this translates into smaller, lighter and more...