Texas Instruments was converting its gallium nitride (GaN) chip production for 6-inch wafers to 8-inch ones in multiple fabs, a company executive said on Tuesday.
The analog chip company was preparing 8-inch fabs at Dallas and Aizu in Japan which will allow it to offer more price-competitive GaN chips, Jerome Shin, a manager at Texas Instruments Korea, said in a press conference in Seoul.
There was a perception that GaN chips were more expensive than silicon carbide (SiC) ones but this has flipped since 2022, Shin said.
GaN chips were lowered price than their SiC counterparts and the completion of conversion of Texas Instruments’ fabs in Dallas and Aizu will allow it to offer even cheaper solutions, the manager said.
The chipmaker was in the middle of converting its 6-inch wafer fabs to 8-inch and 8-inch ones to 12-inch.
A larger wafer means more chips per wafer which gives the company a productivity boost.
The upgrade in Dallas is expected to be completed in 2025 while Shin didn’t share the timeline for the fab in Aizu.
Sources said Texas Instruments’ move could cause an overall drop in prices for GaN chips.
This happened when the company converted its power management IC production from 8-inch to 12-inch, which caused an industry-wide price drop of the chips.
The shift to 8-inch is expected to allow Texas Instruments to save cost by over 10%, the sources said.
Meanwhile, the company also unveiled its 100V GaN LMG2100R044 and LMG3100R017 chips that offer a power density of 1.5kW/in3.
