Kyma Technologies Wins North Carolina Green Business Fund Grant

Kyma Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of ultra-high purity crystalline gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum nitride (AlN) materials and related products and services, today announced their selection to receive a $60,000 North Carolina Green Business Fund Grant to improve the electrical efficiency of high power electronic switches.

 

High power electronic (HPE) semiconductor devices are critical components in electrical power systems, such as switching power supplies for industrial and consumer electronics, power inverters for hybrid electric vehicles, and power switches and generators on the electrical grid. Significant efficiency improvements can be obtained by employing GaN-based devices which offer highly desirable combinations of breakdown voltage, current density, on-resistance, and operating temperature.

Kyma is teamed with NCSU Professors Doug Barlage and Mark Johnson on the NC Green Project, who will use Kyma’s GaN materials in their state-of-the-art semiconductor transistor device development effort to further advance device performance beyond what can be achieved using foreign substrates.

Commercial applications for GaN HPE include switching power supplies for industrial and consumer electronics, inverter and converter electronics for hybrid and all-electric vehicles, and renewable and traditional electric grid electronics. These applications will command a premium for a higher performance, more electrically efficient, smaller, and/or less temperature sensitive transistor. As the technology cost decreases with increased production volumes and improved manufacturing techniques, additional applications will benefit from the advantages of high electrical efficiency GaN HPE. Additionally, several military applications beckon as potential “early adopters” of the technology.

Dr. Drew Hanser, who is Kyma’s CTO and VP Business Development and also the project’s Principle Investigator, offered, “We are proud to receive support from the State of North Carolina to carry out research that has great potential to bring about commercial solutions that will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.”

Dr. Keith Evans, Kyma’s president and CEO, added, “We thank our North Carolina State officials for their vision of a greener tomorrow and for their success in launching small-business friendly programs like the NC Green Business Fund. We also thank our NCSU collaborators who help us to understand our products better and to find innovative ways to bring them to market.”

About the North Carolina Green Business Fund

The North Carolina Green Business Fund was created last year by the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology to award funds to North Carolina small for-profit and non-profit businesses, and State and local governmental entities, to encourage the development and commercialization of promising green technologies.

For more information about the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology and the North Carolina Green Business Fund, visit http://www.ncscienceandtechnology.com.

About Kyma Technologies

Kyma was launched in 1998 as a spin out of North Carolina State University’s Materials Science and Engineering Department to pursue the development of gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum nitride (AlN) substrates for a broad range of high performance nitride semiconductor device applications.

Kyma’s diversified product offering includes: ultra-low defect density native (free-standing) GaN in customer-defined orientation including polar (c-plane Ga-face or N-face) and non-polar (a-plane and m-plane), GaN and AlN templates grown on sapphire and other substrates, and ultra-high purity polycrystalline GaN.

The market for nitride semiconductor devices is expected to surpass $9B by 2010. The combined addressable market for GaN and AlN substrates is expected to surpass $500M by 2010.

For more information about Kyma Technologies, please visit our website www.kymatech.com, send us e-mail at info@kymatech.com, or call the company directly at 919.789.8880.

Kyma is a registered trademark of Kyma Technologies, Inc.