【Domestic News】West Gallium Semiconductor Drives Domestic Gallium Oxide Industrialization with Heteroepitaxy Technology

      On June 20, 2025, during the online project roadshow hosted by West China Huichuang Institute for Microelectronics Technology Industrialization, Xijia Semiconductor showcased its progress in the research and development and industrialization of Gallium Oxide (β-Ga₂O₃) epitaxial wafer, a fourth-generation ultra-wide band gap semiconductor material. Its core heteroepitaxial technology route provides new ideas for solving the key bottlenecks in the current industrialization of Gallium Oxide.

01 Gallium Oxide: Superior performance but facing multiple challenges in industrialization

      Gallium Oxide (β-Ga₂O₃) has significant potential in the next-generation high-power devices, solar-blind ultraviolet detection and radio frequency devices due to its ultra-wide band gap (4.9 eV), high critical breakdown electric field (8 MV/cm), and excellent Baliga’s Figure of Merit (3444, ten times that of SiC). The global power device market is projected to reach $1.54 billion by 2030.

      However, its industrialization faces multiple challenges: international embargoes have led to difficulties in accessing key materials and equipment (such as the suspension of product supply from Japan’s NCT); The cost of the substrate is high (domestic 2-inch substrates cost 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, about ten times that of SiC substrates of the same size); The industrial supply of high-quality epitaxial wafer is seriously insufficient. The material itself has technical bottlenecks such as low thermal conductivity (difficult heat dissipation) and immature p-type doping. Referring to the cost structure of mature SiC devices, substrate (about 47%) and epitaxial (about 23%) together account for 70% of the total cost of the device, which is the core breakthrough for cost reduction and efficiency improvement at present.

02 West Gallium Semiconductor's technology route: Breaking through heteroepitaxy

      In response to the high substrate costs and heat dissipation challenges, the core strategy of West Gallium Semiconductor is to heteroepitaxially grow high-quality Gallium Oxide films on mature and low-cost substrates.

      Significantly reduce costs: Directly using a 6-inch SiC substrate (cost < 3,000 yuan) to replace the expensive Gallium Oxide substrate fundamentally avoids the substrate cost bottleneck. By integrating its independently developed halide vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) and other processes (which simplify the gas environment and tail gas treatment compared to traditional MOCVD/MBE processes), the cost of the epitaxy process is further reduced.

      Effective improvement of heat dissipation: The thermal resistance of Gallium Oxide Schottky Diodes (SBD) heteroepitaxial on SiC substrates can be reduced by approximately two-thirds compared to those with homogeneous epitaxial structures. Experiments show that within the range of room temperature to 250℃, the performance of the device can remain stable, alleviating the shortcoming of low thermal conductivity of Gallium Oxide itself.

      Strong process compatibility: The heteroepitaxial solution is compatible with existing SiC or Si-based device manufacturing processes, lowering the production line conversion threshold and cost for downstream device manufacturers.

      Leading technical indicators: The team's Gallium Oxide heteroepitaxial films grown on Silicon Carbide substrates have an X-ray diffraction rocking curves FWHM of approximately 0.1° on the (-201) crystal face, with a sample size of 1.5cm×1.5cm and a thickness of 1μm. These key parameters are at the leading level in similar international research. At present, the laboratory has initially completed the preparation of 2-inch homogeneous epitaxial wafer and has achieved 2-inch (sapphire base), 1.5cm×1.5cm (Silicon Carbide base, aluminum nitride base, diamond base) and 1.0cm×1.0cm (silicon base) heterogeneous epitaxial wafer.

03 Market Opportunities and Policy Support

      Huge application potential: The target application scenarios of Gallium Oxide devices include new energy vehicles (fast charging piles, OBC, main inverters), photovoltaic inverters, industrial power supplies (650V-3300V medium and high voltage fields), as well as photoelectric detection fields such as power grid monitoring, fire warning, and maritime search and rescue that utilize their Solar-blind ultraviolet response. There is also room for exploration in the direction of radio frequency devices.

      The urgent need for domestic substitution: Under the national strategy of achieving independent control of key semiconductor materials, there is an urgent need to break through the technological blockade and industrialization bottleneck of Gallium Oxide.

      Strong policy support: Gallium Oxide has been included in the national key research and development plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan (such as the "Research on Large-sized Gallium Oxide Semiconductor Materials and High-Performance Devices" project), as well as in the semiconductor/new materials industry development plans and action plans of multiple provinces and cities (such as Guangdong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Beijing, Ningbo, etc.), and is a frontier material that is given key support for development.

04 Teams and Progress

      Core team: Derived from the State Key Laboratory of Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Technology and the National Engineering Research Center for wide band gap Semiconductors at Xidian University. The core team all have about ten years of research or industrial experience in Gallium Oxide/Silicon Carbide materials.

      Technical accumulation: The team has applied for over 20 related patents in areas such as Gallium Oxide epitaxial growth, defect control, doping simulation and process, and has published more than 30 SCI papers.

      Current progress: We have provided small-batch epitaxial wafer for device research and development to research institutions such as Xi 'an Jiaotong University, Xidian University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi 'an University of Technology, Xi’an Technological University and Xiamen University of Technology. And we have reached cooperation intentions with some power device manufacturers.

      West Gallium Semiconductor plans to raise 6 million yuan in this round, mainly for system research and development, equipment procurement, materials and site costs, etc. If you are interested in Xijia Semiconductor, please contact West China Huichuang Institute for Microelectronics Technology Industrialization (Xiaoxi wechat ID: 17309224491) to learn more about the project.