Exagan, a start-up innovator of gallium-nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology, today announced it has raised €5.7 million in first-round financing that will be used to produce power switching devices on 200mm wafers.

The investors include leading French venture founds as:

• Technocom2, managed by Innovacom, a French venture capital firm
• CM-CIC Innovation, the investment arm of the European bank group, Crédit Mutuel-CIC Group
• IRDInov, a regional seed investor in emerging companies
• CEA investissement, a manager of funds invested in technology companies, and which invested via the CEA strategic fund.
• Soitec, the Silicon on Insulator manufacturing process inventor and leader

Following Exagan’s recent announcement of an agreement with X-FAB to produce devices on 200mm wafers, the financing will help support its growth to become worldwide recognized GaN manufacturer. They developped the Exagan’s G-FET^TM 650 V platform.

Exagan, based in Grenoble with a branch office in Toulouse, was spun off by Leti and Soitec in 2014 and licenses materials and technology from both organizations.

GaN, a highly competitive market:

ExaGaN is competing with other players are on the Gallium nitride main manufacturers map released by Point The Power.

This news comes right after Transphorm Inc raising $70M for the same objective. Leaders in the Gallium Nitride field are Transphorm, but also EPC Corp. created by Alex Lidow, former CEO of International Rectifier. Some other start-up companies may be ready to release products and enter in competition with Exagan: Powdec (Japan), Cambridge electronics (USA), Avogy (USA), BeMiTec (Germany)…

These companies will be facing Panasonic and Infineon. The two heavy weight power electronics players have entered into a co-manufacturing agreement. Infineon becoming a second source manufacturer for Panasonic GaN-on-Silicon GIT (Gate Injection Transistor).

The GaN market is definitely entering into a real battle: A race to the first widely available devices to get a leading market position.

Download our GaN Market knowledge update presentation to know more…