New Synthetic Diamond Wafers For The Semiconductor Industry

Power Diamond Systems (PDS), a Japanese startup spun out of Waseda University, is emerging as a pioneer in the use of synthetic diamond for next-generation power semiconductors. At SEMICON Japan 2025, the company made a strong debut by unveiling diamond-based power MOSFETs—metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors—designed for high-voltage and high-temperature applications. Notably, PDS presented its technology within an integrated evaluation system that confirmed successful device operation after packaging, marking the first public validation of packaged diamond semiconductor performance.

These diamond power MOSFETs are engineered to handle hundreds of volts, demonstrating durability and efficiency far beyond that of silicon (Si) or even silicon carbide (SiC) alternatives. PDS envisions their eventual use in electric vehicles (EVs), aerospace platforms, and communications satellites where thermal stress, radiation, and power density pose major design challenges. While the technology remains in its development phase, the company plans to collaborate with potential industrial partners to achieve commercialization within the 2030s.

PDS’s ambitions extend beyond domestic markets. In July 2025, the startup announced a joint research partnership with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to test its diamond power MOSFETs in real-world space conditions. The collaboration aims to verify the devices’ endurance under intense radiation, vacuum, and thermal cycling typical of planetary and satellite operations. Ground-based testing of performance and reliability is scheduled to begin during the 2025 fiscal year (April 2025–March 2026). This phase will assess mechanical and electronic stability before launching the components in orbital testbeds or deep-space missions.

Diamond as a semiconductor base material offers several intrinsic advantages. It possesses the highest known thermal conductivity of any solid, excellent radiation resistance, and wide bandgap properties, ideal for high-voltage operation. These traits enable diamond-based devices to operate at higher temperatures and voltages than SiC or gallium nitride (GaN), potentially redefining power electronics for future aerospace, defense, and high-performance EV applications.

So far, PDS’s prototypes have achieved record-breaking power density, placing the company at the forefront of semiconductor innovation. Although large-scale manufacturing remains years away, the combination of diamond’s physical advantages, vertical device engineering, and institutional partnerships positions PDS as a potential leader in ultra-high-performance power semiconductors for the coming decade.

Diamond-based power semiconductors like those from PDS could impact LED lighting, but largely in an indirect, system-level way. The biggest implications are in thermal management, driver efficiency, reliability, and niche harsh-environment applications.

System-level efficiency and miniaturization

• Diamond power MOSFETs can switch high voltages with lower losses, improving AC–DC and DC–DC conversion efficiencies in drivers for high-power LED luminaires such as streetlights, stadium lighting, and horticulture fixtures.
• Higher efficiency at the driver stage means less waste heat, enabling smaller heatsinks, more compact luminaire designs, or more lumens per fixture at a given power budget.

Thermal management and lifetime

• Diamond’s exceptional thermal conductivity makes it valuable not only as an active semiconductor but also as a heat-spreading material in LED modules and driver boards.
• Using diamond substrates or boards under power LEDs has been shown to significantly extend component lifetime by reducing junction temperatures, a key failure mechanism in high-power LED systems.

Harsh-environment and specialty lighting

• Diamond-based electronics and possible diamond LEDs are attractive for extreme environments involving high temperature, pressure, radiation, or aggressive chemicals (e.g., industrial plants, downhole, aerospace, nuclear).
• For the LED industry, this points to niche product lines: harsh-environment luminaires, mission-critical signaling, and specialized metrology or UV/sterilization sources where conventional LEDs or drivers rapidly degrade.

Integration with GaN and high-power LEDs

• Research combining diamond films with GaN has shown notable improvement in thermal performance of high-power LEDs by spreading and extracting heat more effectively from the chip.
• If diamond power devices and GaN LEDs co-package on diamond-based substrates, manufacturers could push drive currents and power densities further without sacrificing reliability, enabling brighter, more robust high-power packages.

Strategic and business implications

• LED and driver makers serving EV charging, aerospace lighting, and high-end industrial markets may form R&D partnerships with diamond semiconductor startups to co-develop next-generation driver stages and thermal platforms.
• However, high costs and immature supply chains mean adoption will start in premium, performance-critical segments, with mainstream general lighting seeing benefits later via improved drivers or diamond-based heat spreaders rather than diamond emitters themselves.

Both images above courtesy of Power Diamond Systems.

David Shiller

David Shiller is the Publisher of LightNOW, and President of Lighting Solution Development, a North American consulting firm providing business development services to advanced lighting manufacturers. The ALA awarded David the Pillar of the Industry Award. David has co-chaired ALA’s Engineering Committee since 2010. David established MaxLite’s OEM component sales into a multi-million dollar division. He invented GU24 lamps while leading ENERGY STAR lighting programs for the US EPA. David has been published in leading lighting publications, including LD+A, enLIGHTenment Magazine, LEDs Magazine, and more.

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