“GaN on GaN” program is an engagement program amongst local and international academic researchers with local small and medium enterprise (SME) and multi-national corporations to form a strong community with a shared interest on light emitting diodes (LEDs) technology, encompassing front end technology of wide band gap semiconductor epitaxy growth and back end process of LEDs packaging. Since the launch of Malaysia's 9th plan (2006-2010) and National Green Technology policy in year 2009, Malaysian government has identified sustainable development as a national priority, which has been motivated farther in Malaysia's 10th plan (2011-2015). Starting from this year, green technology has been placed as the preferred choice to obtain environmental-friendly products and services in parallel direction with Malaysia's 11th plan (2016-2020). Light switching to using LEDs as solid state lighting (SSL) is one of the green technology option due to the use of energy-efficient semiconductor material to convert electricity to light, differing from conventional lighting that use energy-inefficient and harmful halogen or electric filaments to produce light.

To accelerate economic development of Malaysia, our government has encouraged innovation-led growth through economic transformation programme under the Electrical & Electronics National Key Economic Area (NKEA) to assist local SME corporations driving towards international competitiveness through Malaysian-made LEDs as SSL products. Nevertheless, a lack of expertises on LEDs manufacturing and innovation technology involving front end epitaxy growth has hence encouraged outsourcing of expertises across the countries.

“GaN on GaN” program is funded by Malaysian government for five years through Economic Planning Unit (EPU) for a total funding of RM 75 million. GaN on GaN LED epitaxy and development of bulk GaN will enable Malaysia to be at the fore front of a new technology, which will revolutionize the current technology based on GaN on sapphire. This program involves a scientific collaboration with academia and industry through the involvement of key industrial players in the LED packaging, experts in local universities, and technology transfer of making LEDs from Solid State Lighting and Energy Electron Center (SSLEEC), University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) to Malaysia. Institutions in Malaysia involved in this collaboration with UCSB include Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), University Malaya (UM), Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UNIMAP), Monash University at Sunway Campus (MUSC), CREST, NCIA, and related industries (OSRAM, Lumileds, Penchem, Inari, ItraMAS, etc). Next generation solid state lighting will take advantage of two emerging technologies: GaN on GaN light emitting diode (LED) and laser-based lighting. “GaN on GaN” technology is also being pursued for niche market of UV LEDs and LiFi. The ultimate target of the "GaN on GaN" program is to produce high luminaire LEDs up to 250 Lm/W for 2” and 4” LED chips in Malaysia for the first time.