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Gallium Nitride is taking over the world!

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Well, maybe not the entire world but it is getting seriously important! I enjoyed the article at http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/02/move-over-silicon-gallium-nitride-chips-are-taking-over/ from which I paste: Above: Alex Lidow, CEO of Efficient Power Conversion Image Credit: Dean Takahashi ilicon chips have had a decades-long run as the foundation for modern electronics. But a new kind of chip, based on the compound material gallium nitride (GaN), promises to unseat silicon because it has higher performance, less power consumption, and lower cost. That might sound crazy, given the economies of scale for silicon, which has been an almost perfect semiconductor device that can both conduct or block electrical signals. Many people scoffed in early years at alternative materials such as gallium arsenide, which proved to be too expensive. Gallium nitride’s assault on silicon is just in time for the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law, the prediction by Intel chairman emeritus G...
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Heteroepitaxy and Homoepitaxy have Equal Rights!

No more needs to be said.
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Soraa is hot!

It seems that the United States is waking up to the gallium nitride opportunity, albeit 2-decades after Japan did. Soraa is really hot - check them out at www.soraa.com.  They have LEDs made on bulk GaN that are just as bright as the world's best which are made on sapphire, but Soraa's are 10x smaller!  Now that's what I'm talking about!
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I can't help myself - see  http://www.grist.org/article/Newt-Gingrich-is-an-idiot .
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Earth's Temperature Tracker

NASA has published a really great and condense explanation of global cooling and global warming trends through the years and looking forward. Check it out at  http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200711_temptracker/ . It is only 2 (web) pages and does a great job of summarizing major trend issues, including CO2, volcanoes, and greenhouse gases.
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GaN diode performance continues to advance past SiC theoretical limits

Because crystalline SiC materials development got real with early ONR and DARPA funding, SiC power electronics development has led to some great performances and the beginnings of commercialization, with SiC device results slowly getting closer to the theoretical limits of the SiC materials system. However, we have known for decades that GaN should do better than SiC, and now that others, with Japan leading, are investing heavily in crystalline GaN materials technology, GaN devices are being demonstrated that surpass the theoretical limits of SiC devices. This article about R&D at Hosei Universiy and Hitachi Cable is yet another example of how crystalline GaN substrates enable us to cross that theoretical SiC performance limit. With all else being equal, we would then predict that GaN is going to continue to get better and better and the day may be soon in which all GaN devices perform better than all SiC devices. But what about the price and the influence of other market dynam...
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Cissoid: The Leader in High Temperature Semiconductor Solutions

Cissoid is a company that appreciates the benefits of wide bandgap semiconductors for high performance applications in general, including those that must continue to perform at high temperatures. They are taking advantage of the fact that GaN has superb, and SiC almost as superb, a Baliga Figure of Merit, much better than Silicon itself.
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