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Navitas Semiconductor has confirmed continued supply of leading-edge gallium nitride (GaN) power ICs. On July 3rd, 2023, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced it would put in place certain restrictions on the exporting of gallium and germanium, among other materials, starting in August. Navitas’ wafer technology is ‘GaN-on-Si’. The wafer subcontract manufacturer has verified that their production remains unaffected by the export restrictions, given multiple sources of gallium world-wide.
As a result, Navitas does not expect customer deliveries to be impacted or its business to be adversely affected by the export restrictions.
Significant sources of gallium are available worldwide, as it is a natural by-product in the production of other metals such as aluminum. Navitas does not use germanium in any product.
Original – Navitas Semiconductor
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Renesas Electronics Corporation and Wolfspeed, Inc. announced the execution of a wafer supply agreement and $2 billion (USD) deposit by Renesas to secure a 10 year supply commitment of silicon carbide bare and epitaxial wafers from Wolfspeed. The supply of high-quality silicon carbide wafers from Wolfspeed will pave the way for Renesas to scale production of silicon carbide power semiconductors starting in 2025. The signing ceremony of the agreement was held at Renesas’ headquarters in Tokyo between Hidetoshi Shibata, President and CEO of Renesas, and Gregg Lowe, President and CEO of Wolfspeed.
The decade-long supply agreement calls for Wolfspeed to provide Renesas with 150mm silicon carbide bare and epitaxial wafers scaling in CY2025, reinforcing the companies’ vision for an industry-wide transition from silicon to silicon carbide semiconductor power devices. The agreement also anticipates supplying Renesas with 200mm silicon carbide bare and epitaxial wafers after the recently announced John Palmour Manufacturing Center for Silicon Carbide (the “JP”) is fully operational.
The need for more efficient power semiconductors, which supply and manage electricity, is dramatically increasing throughout automotive and industrial applications, spurred by the growth of electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy. Renesas is moving quickly to address the growing demand for power semiconductors by expanding its in-house manufacturing capacity. The company recently announced the restart of its Kofu Factory to produce IGBTs, and establishment of a silicon carbide production line at its Takasaki Factory.
Compared to conventional silicon power semiconductors, silicon carbide devices enable higher energy efficiency, greater power density and a lower system cost. In an increasingly energy-conscious world, the adoption of silicon carbide is becoming ever more pervasive across multiple high-volume applications spanning EVs, renewable energy and storage, charging infrastructure, industrial power supplies, traction and variable speed drives.
“The wafer supply agreement with Wolfspeed will provide Renesas with a stable, long-term supply base of high-quality silicon carbide wafers. This empowers Renesas to scale our power semiconductor offerings to better serve customers’ vast array of applications,” said Hidetoshi Shibata, President and CEO of Renesas. “We are now poised to elevate ourselves as a key player in the accelerating silicon carbide market.”
“With the steepening demand for silicon carbide across the automotive, industrial and energy sectors, it’s critically important we have best-in-class power semiconductor customers like Renesas to help lead the global transition from silicon to silicon carbide,” said Gregg Lowe, President and CEO of Wolfspeed. “For more than 35 years, Wolfspeed has focused on producing silicon carbide wafers and high-quality power devices, and this relationship marks an important step in our mission to save the world energy.”
The Renesas $2 billion deposit will help support Wolfspeed’s ongoing capacity construction projects including the JP, the world’s largest silicon carbide materials factory in Chatham County, North Carolina. The state-of-the-art, multi-billion-dollar facility is targeted to generate a more than 10-fold increase from Wolfspeed’s current silicon carbide production capacity on its Durham, North Carolina campus. The facility will produce primarily 200mm silicon carbide wafers, which are 1.7x larger than 150mm wafers, translating into more chips per wafer and ultimately, lower device costs.
Original – Renesas Electronics
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Microchip Technology Incorporated announced a multi-year initiative to invest approximately $300 million in expanding its operations in India, one of the world’s fastest-growing semiconductor industry hubs.
“Microchip is making a significant strategic commitment to growing our operations in India, whose meteoric growth has established it as one of the top sources of business and technical resources in our sector,” said Ganesh Moorthy, President and CEO of Microchip. “Our investments here will enable us to both benefit from and contribute to the country’s increasingly important role in the global semiconductor industry.”
Microchip’s planned investments are focused on:
- Additional improvements to Microchip’s Bangalore and Chennai facilities and the new research and development center in Hyderabad that the company inaugurated in a ceremony today
- Expanding and enhancing its engineering labs
- Serving the technical and business support requirements of a large and growing set of customers in India
- Accelerating hiring as the company taps into India’s growing talent pool
- Sponsoring technical consortia and supporting academic institutions and programs
- Launching a variety of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs tailored to regional needs
Approximately 2,500 Microchip employees in India are integral to the company’s semiconductor design and development, sales and support, IT infrastructure and application engineering operations. They strengthen corporate initiatives, support 2,000 customers in the region and make valuable contributions across more than 25 business units that develop solutions for industrial, automotive, data center, aerospace and defense, communications and consumer industries.
“Microchip’s investments in India over nearly two and a half decades have augmented its headcount growth, resulting in building a center of excellence for engineering deliverables and solutions for Microchip’s global success,” said Krishna Moorthy, President and CEO of the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA). “We look forward to celebrating Microchip’s continued progress in India as it embarks on this impressive growth campaign.”
IESA and Counterpoint Research recently reported that India’s semiconductor market is expected to reach $64 billion USD by 2026, which is nearly triple its 2019 size of $22.7 billion USD. The Semiconductor Industry Association wrote in its February 2023 India Semiconductor Sector white paper that the country now accounts for 20 percent of the total global design workforce. Together, IESA and SIA announced in January 2023 their plans to jointly build on what India has already accomplished as a major hub for semiconductor research, chip design and equipment engineering, with the goal of unlocking even greater future potential.
Original – Microchip Technology
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The EPE ECCE Europe conference is one of the largest in the world, attracting around eight hundred experts from numerous countries every year. Aiming at exchanging experience among fellow professionals and academics, and bearing in mind the present and future role of power electronics in the big energy transition the world is looking forward to, the EPE ECCE Europe conference is the privileged place to achieve this goal. EPE’23 ECCE Europe in Aalborg will provide the opportunity to discuss hot topics through the lecture- and poster sessions, the exhibition, the industrial forums and the tutorials.
After a successful EPE ECCE Europe conference in 2007, the Power Electronics community will gather again in Aalborg, Denmark, from September 4 to 8, 2023, to exchange views on research progress and technological developments in the various topics described elsewhere in this website.
On Monday, September 4th, several tutorials will be organized, and some exciting technical visits are planned for Friday, September 8th.
The 25th Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (and Exhibition), EPE ’23 ECCE Europe (Energy Conversion Congress and Expo Europe) is co-sponsored by the EPE Association and the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS).
The conference will take place at the AKKC – The Aalborg Congress and Culture Center, in Aalborg, Denmark, and will highlight several Focus Topics:
- Tuesday 5 September:
Energy Islands
1. Renewable Energy Systems and Power-to-X
2. Energy Islands- Wednesday 6 September:
Energy Storage
3. Energy-storage Technologies
4. Electric Vehicles- Thursday 7 September:
Emerging Technologies in Power Electronics
5. Emerging Power Electronic Devices and Semiconductors
6. Reliability and Artificial Intelligence in Power ElectronicsOriginal – EPE’23 ECCE Europe
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Navitas Semiconductor and Plexim GmbH announced a partnership to release GeneSiC G3™ SiC MOSFET and Gen 5 MPS diode PLECS thermal loss models for highly-accurate simulations of complete power electronics systems.
Power designers can simulate power and thermal losses in various soft- and hard-switching applications. Proprietary GeneSiC trench-assisted planar-gate MOSFET technology delivers the lowest RDS(ON) at high temperature and the highest efficiency at high speeds, and new MPS diodes with ‘low-knee’ characteristics drive unprecedented, industry-leading levels of performance, robustness and quality.
“Accurate, empirically-based simulation models maximize the chance of first-time-accurate designs, accelerating time-to-market and time-to-revenue,” noted Dr. Ranbir Singh, Navitas EVP for the GeneSiC business line. “For the power designer, understanding the leading-edge performance of GeneSiC MOSFETs and MPS diodes with detailed device characteristics, plus power, efficiency and thermal analysis is a critical competitive advantage.”
“The intuitive and highly-efficient PLECS lookup-table based approach to simulating thermal semiconductor losses in complex power electronic circuits is key,” said Kristofer Eberle, Plexim, North America. “Unlike legacy modeling approaches that are not well-suited to new wide bandgap materials, PLECS uses a simplified, but accurate behavioral description to highlight the superior performance of the GeneSiC MOSFETs.”
PLECS models for GeneSiC MOSFETs and MPS diodes are available via genesicsemi.com.
Original – Navitas Semiconductor
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Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation (“Toshiba”) has launched “TPH3R10AQM,” a 100V N-channel power MOSFET fabricated with Toshiba’s latest-generation process, U-MOS X-H. The product targets applications such as switching circuits and hot swap circuits on the power lines of industrial equipment used for data centers and communications base stations.
TPH3R10AQM has industry-leading 3.1mΩ maximum drain-source On-resistance, 16% lower than Toshiba’s 100V product, “TPH3R70APL,” which uses the earlier generation process. By the same comparison, TPH3R10AQM has expanded its safe operating area by 76% making it suitable for linear mode operation. Reducing the On-resistance and expanding the linear operating range in the safe operating area reduce the number of parallel connections. Furthermore, its gate threshold voltage range of 2.5V to 3.5V, makes it less likely to malfunction due to gate voltage noise.
The new product uses the highly footprint compatible SOP Advance(N) package.Toshiba will continue to expand its line-up of power MOSFETs that can increase the efficiency of power supplies by reducing loss, and help lower equipment power consumption.
Applications
- Power supplies for communications equipment such as for data centers and communications base stations
- Switching power supplies (High efficiency DC-DC converters, etc.)
Features
- Featuring Industry-leading excellent low On-resistance: RDS(ON)=3.1mΩ (max) (VGS=10V)
- Wide safe operating area
- High channel temperature rating: Tch (max)=175°C
Original – Toshiba
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Elmos Semiconductor SE, one of the world’s leading suppliers of mixed-signal automotive semiconductors, and Littelfuse, Inc., USA, entered into a definitive agreement on the sale of the Elmos wafer fab at the Dortmund site to Littelfuse. Elmos has agreed to sell the wafer fab at a net purchase price of approximately 93 million Euro. Under the agreement, Littelfuse will acquire the Dortmund wafer fab with a highly skilled technology team of approximately 225 employees. All other activities, including testing operations, will remain with Elmos.
In acquiring the Dortmund wafer fab, Littelfuse enhances its capabilities in power semiconductors for high-growth power conversion applications like renewables, energy storage, and e-Mobility charging infrastructure.
“Today’s agreement is a milestone for semiconductor production in Dortmund and it will strengthen Germany’s standing as a high-tech location. As a fabless company, Elmos will make even greater use of advanced technologies to deliver groundbreaking innovations in mixed-signal semiconductors. Elmos is already the global market leader for certain applications in the automotive industry. We want to use this strong position to shape our future growth,” says Dr. Arne Schneider, CEO of Elmos Semiconductor SE.
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States, Littelfuse, Inc. is a diversified, industrial technology manufacturing company empowering a sustainable, connected and safer world. The company operates across more than 20 countries, and with approximately 18,000 global associates. Its products are found in a variety of industrial, transportation and electronics end markets. In Germany, Littelfuse operates various manufacturing, sales and R&D sites.
The closing of the transaction is expected to be effective December 31, 2024, and is subject to certain closing conditions and regulatory approvals, among them the investment control procedure under foreign trade law conducted by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Elmos will retain full operational control over the wafer fab until the closing date.
In addition, Elmos and Littelfuse have agreed to enter into a defined multi-year capacity sharing arrangement with an initial term lasting through 2029, with Elmos buying defined volumes of wafers produced at the fab. This long-term agreement supplements the existing supply arrangements with Elmos’ other foundry partners and ensures that Elmos has the necessary capacities to meet projected customer demand.
“This is good news for the Elmos wafer fab team. We are delighted for Littelfuse to further develop the wafer fab in Dortmund for power semiconductors. Our employees are now expecting a quick review procedure by the relevant authorities,” says Dr. Schneider.
Following regulatory approvals of the transaction, the buyer will make a payment of approximately 37 million Euro. The remainder of the purchase price will be paid at closing. The transaction has no major effects on EBIT in fiscal year 2023, which is why the current forecast for the full-year EBIT margin in 2023 (25% ± 2 percentage points) continues to apply.
Cash flow is expected to be positively influenced in fiscal year 2023 by the payment of approximately 37 million Euro after regulatory approvals. Irrespective of the transaction, Elmos continues to increase its efforts to expand testing capacities for future growth. The company now anticipates capital expenditures of approximately 19% ± 2 percentage points of sales in fiscal year 2023 (previously: 17% ± 2 percentage points). As a result, Elmos now expects a negative operating adjusted free cash flow in 2023.
Original – Elmos Semiconductor
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Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. announced the launch of several new systems and capabilities serving high-volume semiconductor and fast-growing power-semiconductor applications.
POWERCOMM™ and POWERNEXX™ represent the next evolution in advanced wire bonding systems and are designed with a new generation of intuitive advanced process capabilities which deliver maximum levels of performance, efficiency, and productivity. Additionally, both systems deliver enhanced mean time between assists (MTBA), with automated recovery features that improve the machine to operator ratio and better support localization of semiconductor assembly.
The POWERCOMM™ advanced wire bonding solution is designed to support high-volume discrete and low-pin count devices commonly used in applications such as data centers, automotive, industrial automation, smartphones, wearables and connected devices.
The POWERNEXX™ advanced wire bonding solution is optimized for higher density QFN packages with widths of up to 100mm. The improved illumination design on POWERNEXX™ allows faster alignment time through its Pattern Recognition System (PRS). Faster alignment and advanced process capabilities deliver the industry leading UPH and lowest Cost-of-Ownership.
In addition to the new POWERCOMM™ and POWERNEXX™ systems, K&S extends its leadership in wedge bond applications with new High-Power-Interconnect (HPI) capabilities addressing the emerging needs of power devices. HPI capabilities are becoming increasingly necessary to assemble applications such as inverters, battery assembly and charging infrastructure which support the growth and increasing efficiency requirements of sustainable energy and electric vehicle applications. The need for more efficient and higher-current applications are driving rapid changes to the power semiconductor market by increasing demand in emerging compound semiconductors, such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN), but are also demanding new capabilities to support next-generation battery assembly and are accelerating the transition from aluminum wire and ribbon, to copper wire and ribbon. Next generation HPI capabilities are being introduced across Kulicke & Soffa’s leading wedge bonder portfolio today.
“Our rich history of innovation and ongoing development priorities are enabling us to provide additional value to the increasingly critical assembly process. This recent set of new wire bonding systems and capabilities will better enable customers to optimize productivity, improve material handling capabilities and significantly lower cost-of-ownership,” said Shawn Sarbacker, Kulicke and Soffa’s Vice President of Ball Bonder Business Unit.
Original – Kulicke and Soffa Industries
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ORC Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Resonac Corporation announced that ORC Manufacturing has taken part in the “JOINT2 (Jisso Open Innovation Network of Tops 2)” consortium, which was established under the leadership of Resonac with the aim of developing next-generation semiconductor packaging technologies. As a result, JOINT2 has become a consortium comprised of 13 leading companies in Japan who manufacture semiconductor packaging materials, substrates, and equipment.
As a consortium which has end-to-end testing line of leading-edge technologies covering back-end processes of semiconductor package manufacturing, JOINT2 will accelerate development of technologies for evaluation and manufacturing of next-generation semiconductor packages.
JOINT2 was established in 2021 as a consortium of 12 companies with the aim of establishing next generation semiconductor packaging technologies and evaluation technologies, including 2.5D and 3D packaging through collaboration among member companies. JOINT2 is the successor of “JOINT” consortium, which was established in 2018.
The combination of the member companies’ materials and equipment allows materials and equipment to be evaluated under conditions similar to the semiconductor evaluation tests conducted by customers. This arrangement helps customers save the time and trouble of carrying out individual evaluations for their suppliers and thereby respond to the need of speedy development of semiconductor packages.
Technologies for “back-end processes” of semiconductor-integrated-circuit manufacturing, where semiconductor chips are packaged, are now required to evolve into next-generation technologies that can support 5G and post-5G high-speed data communication systems. Back-end processes consist of many processes, and consume various materials.
Therefore, back-end processes have many technical issues to be solved, and solutions for these issues require collaboration among many companies. Therefore, Japanese manufacturers have large shares in the field of back-end processes of semiconductor package manufacturing because they are good at comparing and adjusting technologies.
ORC Manufacturing is an equipment manufacturer which has forte in optical technologies, and its key product is direct imaging (Dl) system for production of high-density semiconductor packaging substrates. ORC Manufacturing is now developing next-generation Dl system for back-end processes of semiconductor packaging as a part of the project adopted by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
ORC Manufacturing’s participation in JOINT2 reinforces the consortium’s end-to-end testing line of leading-edge back-end process technologies. ORC Manufacturing’s Dl system, which does not require photo-mask preparation, is expected to shorten time-to-market of semiconductor packages, and accelerate technological innovations in back-end processes of semiconductor packaging.
Through its participation in JOINT2, ORC Manufacturing aims to acquire wide-ranging knowledge about back-end processes of semiconductor packaging including process evaluation technologies applicable to pre-imaging through post-imaging, thereby strengthen its capability to offer values to customers.
JOINT2 welcomes the new member, and will further promote open innovation and accelerate the development of more sophisticated evaluation technologies, materials, substrates, and equipment applicable to next-generation semiconductor packaging technologies.
Original – Resonac
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Bourns, Inc. announced its first 650 V – 1200 V Silicon Carbide (SiC) Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs). The Bourns® SiC SBD line consists of six models engineered to provide excellent current carrying and thermal capabilities and high power density for increased performance and reliability. These capabilities make Bourns® SiC SBDs optimal high efficiency power conversion solutions for the growing variety of high frequency applications that need to meet reduced size and lower system cost requirements.
Telecom/Server Switched-Mode Power Supplies (SMPS), photovoltaic inverters, PC power and motor drives are a few of the applications that can benefit from the features provided in the Bourns® BSD Series SiC SBDs.
To address ongoing design demands for ever higher power efficiency, Bourns® SiC SBDs feature low forward voltage (VF) and high thermal conductivity, which increases efficiency while lowering power dissipation, satisfying application requirements of 650 V and 1200 V solutions.
The series also has no reverse recovery current to reduce EMI, enabling these SiC SBDs to significantly lower energy losses. In addition to offering 650 V to 1200 V operation with currents in the 6-10 A range, the six new BSD models of wide band gap diodes from Bourns offer designers various forward voltage, current and package options including TO220-2, TO247-3, TO252, and DFN8x8.
The six Bourns® Model BSD SiC SBDs are available now. These models are RoHS compliant, halogen free, Pb free and their epoxy potting compound is flame retardant to the UL 94V-0 standard.
For more detailed product information, please see: www.bourns.com/products/diodes/silicon-carbide-sic-schottky-barrier-diodes
Original – Bourns
