The First U.S.-Made GaN Power Semiconductors Are Shipping: Why the Domestic GaN Supply Chain Is a Process Problem, Not a Label

The headline hardware in the reshoring story has been logic and memory — leading-edge nodes, DRAM megafabs, and advanced packaging campuses. A quieter milestone just crossed over in power electronics. In September 2026, Navitas Semiconductor began moving its first U.S.-manufactured 5th-generation GaNFast gallium nitride (GaN) devices out of GlobalFoundries’ 200mm fab in Burlington, Vermont — the former IBM site that GlobalFoundries has positioned as a U.S. center of excellence for RF and GaN. The Navitas announcement and matching GlobalFoundries release frame it plainly: a domestic supply line for next-generation power semiconductors destined for AI infrastructure, industrial electrification, and critical national security systems.

Trading-focused coverage on X put the strategic stakes in sharp terms. Patient Investor’s September 1 post noted that TSMC is exiting the GaN foundry business entirely by mid-2027, that Navitas moved 650V production to Powerchip in Taiwan as one leg, and that Vermont — a second leg running the same 200mm GaN-on-silicon process — is the leg on U.S. soil. That distinction stopped being decorative the moment AI infrastructure buying began turning into procurement policy and semiconductor tariffs went live. The post’s closing line is worth repeating for engineers: the roadmap “lives” in Vermont, not as a backup for a single product but as the manufacturing half of a multi-generation power strategy.

What actually shipped

The first product family is the Gen 5 GaNFast line: 650V GaN FETs and power ICs with RDS(on) values of 11, 18, 50, 120, and 150 milliohms, with the FET, driver, control, sensing, and protection integrated on the die rather than assembled from discrete parts. The 11 milliohm parts are aimed squarely at multi-kilowatt AI server power supplies, where GaN’s fast switching cuts conversion loss and shrinks magnetics. According to the companies, first wafers shipped in September, internal samples follow in October, and strategic customer samples ship before year-end — with production ramping after qualification.

Note the sequencing: “production follows qualification.” A wafer leaving a foundry in Burlington is a manufacturing milestone, not yet a qualified power module. Between the two sits the entire back-end process chain — and that is the part of the story that maps directly to what process engineers actually do.

The wafers are American. The qualification burden is real.

Gallium nitride is a two-dimensional electron gas device grown on a silicon substrate, and its manufacturing discipline is unforgiving in ways that matter well past the front end:

  • Contamination control decides yield and reliability. GaN power and RF devices are field-driven at high voltage; ionic contamination and surface residue directly threaten device passivation, breakdown behavior, and long-term reliability. Cleaning and surface-preparation processes for packaged GaN devices and modules — measured ionic residue, SIR-verified wet chemistry, controlled rinse and dry — are gates, not afterthoughts, for any program that intends to qualify a domestic-power device into a field-reliable assembly.
  • Die attach and thermal management are dominant modes. GaN delivers its advantage through low loss, but the power it switches must still be moved out of the package. Sintered or soldered die attach, void-free bond lines, and matched thermal materials are where a “made-in-USA die” becomes a module that survives thermal cycling. A trapped void or a marginal attach is a latent reliability failure.
  • Wire bonding and lead-frame discipline. High-current GaN parts need heavy-gauge wire bonds or clip attach, whose quality depends on surface condition, tooling, and a documented process window. Bond integrity and pull/shear strength must be characterized and traceable to meet the qualification and surveillance expectations of aerospace, defense, and grid-infrastructure buyers.
  • Solderability and component preparation. Power modules and controller boards under a new domestic supply source share the same problem as every re-sourced power device: tired or alternate-sourced leads, oxide, and mixed metallizations. Solderability verification per J-STD-002, controlled re-tinning, and repeatable lead forming are what keep a new-sourcing qualification from failing first article.
  • Thermal and vacuum process control. Curing, vacuum-assisted die attach and underfill, and controlled reflow profiles all live in this line. Documented thermal/vacuum profiles are the difference between a module that is “made” and one that is qualified, especially for the high-reliability and national-security applications Navitas and GF explicitly target.
  • Traceability, not art. A power semiconductor destined for defense, grid, or AI-infrastructure programs needs provenance that ties a part to a validated process run: equipment parameters, cleaning-bath chemistry and logs, bond and thermal profiles, and controlled rework history. The supply-chain resilience the federal programs are buying is only as strong as that record.

Why this is a Made-in-America story with a process twist

The Burlington site is itself a CHIPS investment. It is part of GlobalFoundries’ $125 million CHIPS Program Office award to commercialize new 200mm technologies — intended to create the first U.S. facility capable of high-volume GaN-on-silicon manufacturing for electric vehicles, the power grid, 5G/6G, and other critical applications. Tying that award to the first shipped Gen 5 GaNFast wafers connects federal incentive money to an actually-rolling domestic production line.

But “Made in the USA” for a GaN power device does not end at the fab door. As Power Electronics News’ coverage of the launch makes clear, the platform’s purpose is a reliable domestic source of advanced GaN power semiconductors for AI data centers and critical national security systems — which means the finished modules, their cleaning, their attach and bond quality, their thermal management, and their qualification all have to hold onshore too. The label is meaningless if the process capability behind it is undocumented or offshore.

Akrivis supports U.S. and North American electronics manufacturers building that domestic process capability — cleaning and contamination control, PCB/SMT and microassembly cleaning, vapor degreasing, component lead forming and cutting, legacy component reconditioning and tinning, solderability, wire bonding, and thermal and vacuum process equipment, backed by North American application support. Our application engineers work with power-electronics and RF/microwave teams, semiconductor packaging groups, EMS providers, and aerospace/defense electronics suppliers on the process questions that decide whether an onshore GaN or SiC device becomes a qualified, field-reliable module.

Request an application review to walk through your cleaning, attach, bonding, solderability, or thermal process challenges with an Akrivis application engineer. Visit /contact/ to start.

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