Infineon Technologies AG has introduced its first fully in-house manufactured radiation-hardened Gallium Nitride (GaN) transistors, built on its proven CoolGaN platform. These advanced transistors are designed to withstand the harsh conditions of space and represent a major achievement as Infineon’s first internally produced GaN devices to receive the highest reliability certification from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) under the Joint Army Navy Space (JANS) MIL-PRF-19500/794 standard.
These GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) are intended for critical space missions, including satellites, crewed spaceflights, and deep-space exploration. Leveraging GaN technology’s superior efficiency and power density along with Infineon’s 50+ years of expertise in high-reliability components, these transistors provide excellent thermal performance and compact design, essential for lightweight, dependable space systems. This new GaN product line complements Infineon’s existing radiation-hardened silicon MOSFET portfolio, offering a broader range of power solutions for space applications.
The initial three devices in this series operate at 100 V and 52 A, featuring an industry-leading low on-resistance (4 mΩ typical) and a total gate charge of 8.8 nC. They come in robust, hermetically sealed ceramic packages, hardened against Single Event Effects (SEE) with a Linear Energy Transfer (LET) tolerance of 70 MeV·cm²/mg. Two devices are rated for Total Ionizing Dose (TID) levels of 100 krad and 500 krad but are not JANS-certified, while the third meets the full JANS certification for 500 krad TID.
Infineon is the first company to achieve DLA JANS certification for GaN power transistors fully manufactured internally, reflecting rigorous quality standards and screening processes to ensure maximum reliability for space missions. To maintain consistent manufacturing quality, Infineon is conducting multiple production runs ahead of full-scale JANS production.
Engineering samples and evaluation boards are already available, with the release of the final JANS-certified device scheduled for summer 2025. Infineon also plans to introduce additional JANS-qualified products soon, broadening the range of voltages and current ratings to provide designers with increased flexibility in developing efficient and robust space-grade systems.
