IN Brief:
- CSA Catapult’s new white paper positions vertical GaN as a key technology for high-voltage, high-efficiency power conversion.
- The report focuses on GaN-on-GaN vertical devices, citing improved defect density, thermal handling, and voltage capability.
- CSA Catapult ties the opportunity to EV charging, renewables, and data centres, while pushing UK supply chain readiness and benchmarking.
The UK’s Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult has published a new white paper making a clear argument: if industry wants smaller, faster, more efficient high-voltage power electronics for net-zero infrastructure, it needs to take vertical GaN seriously — and it needs to do so before the supply chain and talent pipeline are shaped elsewhere.
The Catapult’s framing starts with architecture, not hype. Vertical GaN, particularly GaN-on-GaN, conducts current through the thickness of the device, rather than across the surface as in lateral GaN devices. CSA Catapult argues that this approach lowers defects, handles heat better, and supports higher voltages and power, while also switching faster with less energy loss. The result, in its telling, is not just incremental efficiency, but the potential for smaller, lighter, more reliable power systems across applications where losses scale into real money and real carbon.
The report is explicit about where it expects adoption pressure to bite first. It points to expanding electric vehicle charging networks, renewable energy installations, and power-hungry data centres, and notes that even modest efficiency gains can translate into significant energy and carbon savings at scale. It also offers market signalling: CSA Catapult cites early projections that the high-power GaN device market could reach $1.5bn within five years, and claims next-generation GaN-based systems in data centres could cut electricity use by up to 10%, with compact GaN power adapters delivering hundreds of watts already reaching the market.
CSA Catapult is careful to tie technology ambition to industrial reality. It argues the UK has a credible base — citing university research at Cardiff, Swansea, and Coventry, and a supply chain that includes companies such as IQE and Cambridge GaN Devices — but it also acknowledges the hard work sits in the transition from lab to deployment. That means packaging, qualification, reliability, and benchmarking that convinces conservative industrial buyers to move from silicon, or from silicon carbide, to a new device class that will be expected to run hot, switch fast, and survive ugly grid transients for years.
Nick Singh, chief technology officer at CSA Catapult, said, “Vertical GaN provides an exciting opportunity for UK organisations to deliver cleaner, more efficient power electronics.” The next phase is less about convincing people the physics works and more about proving manufacturability and lifetime in real converters, not just in carefully curated demos.
The full report is available here.
