Kyma Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of ultra-high purity crystalline gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum nitride (AlN) materials and related products and services, announced their participation in two recent ARPA-E workshops.

Kyma CEO and President Dr. Keith Evans was an invited participant in ARPA-E’s Power Technologies Workshop held on February 9^th in Arlington, Va. The goal of the workshop was to bring together thought-leaders from diverse technical communities to collectively develop new directions in methods, components, and systems related to electrical energy conversion.  A primary goal was to identify the most promising R&D pathways to improve the utilization of energy in power technologies.

Dr. Evans stated, “It was an exciting meeting with very energetic discussion of competing technologies and what the best path(s) forward might be.  Kyma is well positioned to support multiple new technologies that were discussed.  Kyma’s low defect density bulk GaN substrates support advanced GaN devices which represent a leap-frog advance over today’s silicon (Si) technologies and have clear potential to outperform silicon carbide (SiC) in the low to medium voltage range.  Kyma’s proprietary GaN on Si approach represents an intermediate technology that is a highly scalable approach to outperforming Si with only a small cost penalty.”

A second workshop, the “ARPA-E Energy Innovation Pre-Conference Workshop,” was held on March 1^st, 2010 and was also attended by Evans, along with Dr. Edward Preble, Kyma COO and Vice President Business Development.

“We are extremely thankful that ARPA-E now has Congressional support.  ARPA-E’s mission is of fundamental importance to our nation’s ability to establish a leadership position in several technologies of great potential commercial and environmental importance,” added Dr. Preble.

Kyma is accelerating its development activities in GaN based power device technology, supportedby collaborative R&D partnerships with several academic and government laboratories.

Gallium nitride is an important new material for power conversion applications, and researchers worldwide are aggressively developing GaN based power electronic device technologies.   GaN’s superior physical properties translate to lower on-resistance and higher breakdown voltages, and also higher switching speeds, supporting smaller inductors in switch-mode power supplies and DC-DC converters.

About Kyma Technologies

Kyma is a leading supplier of crystalline gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum nitride (AlN) materials for a broad range of high performance nitride semiconductor device applications.

The market for nitride semiconductor devices is expected to surpass $30B over the next decade. The combined addressable market for GaN and AlN substrates is expected to surpass $500M in 2010.

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

Kyma is a registered trademark of Kyma Technologies, Inc.