– Barron’s (blog) June 29, 2016 – Tuesday I was fortunate enough to have a meeting with Alex Lidow, founder of chip company, EPC of El Segundo, California, and something of an luminary of the chip world.
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A Silicon Pioneer Plays Taps for Silicon, And Power Cords
Blows Against the Empire: Lidow’s Radical GaN Logic
Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) CEO Alex Lidow tells Light Reading he might be within two years of a breakthrough that would upend the entire semiconductor market: CMOS logic implemented in gallium nitride (GaN).
Lidow has been talking about the end of the silicon era for years. The claim has often been taken as hyperbole because, while GaN has much to recommend it, there was always a catch: the fact that nothing can compete with CMOS logic, and GaN simply can’t do CMOS.
On the plus side, GaN has properties that make the performance of GaN power ICs (field-effect transistors, amplifiers, drivers, controllers, etc.) undeniably superior to their silicon counterparts in many circumstances. And silicon simply craps out in several situations, like, for example in high-frequency applications. You have to use GaN, or some other material.
Look Out Silicon Valley, Here Comes Gallium Beach
– Fox Business, March 18, 2016 – Alex Lidow is a man on a mission. His Southern California company, Efficient Power Conversion or EPC, is using Gallium Nitride (GaN) chips instead of silicon for exciting applications, from wireless power charging and 4G LTE to augmented reality and autonomous vehicles.
How This Entrepreneur Rose From the Ashes to Challenge Silicon Valley
After getting his PhD in applied physics at Stanford, Alex Lidow spent 30 years at International Rectifier (IR), a publicly traded chip company founded by his father Eric Lidow back in the 1940s.
Alex pioneered IR’s power management technology, co-authored the core-patents on which its business was built, became co-CEO with his brother, Derek, in 1995, and ran the company solo after Derek left to found market research firm iSupply in 1999.
Why gallium nitride is ‘6,000 times better’ than silicon
Silicon — the core ingredient in semiconductors and the driving force behind the electronics industry — is reaching its limit, says Alex Lidow, CEO of Efficient Power Conversion Corporation. His Los Angeles-based company is investigating the capacity of gallium nitride (GaN) to disrupt the $400 billion (£277bn) silicon industry with its improved powers of semiconducting. “This is the first time that there is a semiconductor that is both lower cost and has a higher performance than silicon,” Lidow says.
