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Power electronics technologies have undergone a radical transformation following the introduction of wide-bandgap (WBG) devices, such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). These materials, in fact, have characteristics that make them particularly suitable for applications that operate at high voltages and high switching frequencies. To fully exploit the potential offered by wide-bandgap semiconductors, designers must understand the challenges of these materials.
Power electronics design will continue to focus on reducing the size and complexity of devices while increasing their functionality. The design will increasingly incorporate AI and machine learning algorithms to improve performance, monitor system health, and optimize energy management. Future developments will be integrated not only in automotive, industrial, aerospace markets, but also with IoT technologies to create a more connected and automated energy system.
Semiconductor devices are used to drive motors and control power. As efficiency standards for these applications get better, cost-effective and energy-efficient control solutions, test and measurement solutions, and transducers/sensors make design easier and offer a high level of integration, as well as better safety features and certified isolation capabilities.
Moreover, using energy harvesting techniques and new power semiconductors to make electrical and electronic systems work as well as possible is an important part of engineering.
The PowerUP Expo is a three-day virtual conference and exhibition focusing on power electronics. With an exhibition area, live stage, and messaging center, the PowerUP Expo functions similarly to a live exhibition and conference. This technical conference will include a number of sessions including keynotes, panel discussions, technical presentations, and tutorials on a variety of subject matters, including significant technical trends, market demands, and new application areas. The exhibition area will include virtual booths from top power electronics businesses and a Live Chat facility that allows attendees to communicate with booth staff directly.
PowerUP offers an opportunity for engineers, managers, academics, and students from all over the world to learn the latest technological advances and applications in Power Electronics and to connect with each other in our community. The newest trends and advancements in the field of power electronics, from components to intelligent systems, are discussed by leaders in the industry.
Conference Tracks:
- June 27: Tutorial/Lectures, Panel Discussion & Conference Preview
- June 28: Wide Bandgap Semiconductors and Power Applications
- June 29: Power Conversion and Management Design Trends in low and high power
Detailed agenda can be found at PowerUP Expo.
Original – PowerUP Expo
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The technology group ZF will, from 2025, purchase silicon carbide devices from STMicroelectronics. Under the terms of the multi-year contract, ST will supply a volume of double-digit millions of silicon carbide devices to be integrated in ZF’s new modular inverter architecture going into series production in 2025. ZF will leverage ST’s vertically integrated silicon carbide manufacturing in Europe and Asia to secure customer orders in electromobility.
“With this strategically important step, we are strengthening our supply chain to be able to securely supply our customers. Our order book in electromobility until 2030 now amounts to more than thirty billion euros. For this volume, we need several reliable suppliers for silicon carbide devices,” says Stephan von Schuckmann, member of the ZF Board of Management responsible for electromobility as well as materials management. “In STMicroelectronics, we now have a supplier whose experience with complex systems meets our requirements and who, above all, can produce the devices in exceptionally high quality and at the required quantities.” With this agreement, ZF has gained a world-class supplier for silicon carbide technology, in addition to ZF’s existing partnership agreement on silicon carbide technology announced in February.
“As a vertically integrated company, we are investing heavily to expand capacity and develop our silicon carbide supply chain to support our global and European customers across automotive and industrial sectors, as they pursue electrification and decarbonization targets,” says Marco Monti, President Automotive and Discrete Group of STMicroelectronics. “The key to success in electric vehicle technology is greater scalability and modularity with increased efficiency, peak power, and affordability. Our silicon carbide technologies help deliver these benefits and we are proud to work with ZF, a leading automotive supplier for electrification, to help them differentiate and optimize the performance of their inverters.”
ST will manufacture the silicon carbide chips at its production fabs in Italy and Singapore with packaging of the chips into STPAK, an ST-developed advanced package, and testing at its back-end facilities in Morocco and China.
ST will supply ZF from 2025 with a volume of double-digit millions of third generation silicon carbide MOSFET devices. ZF can connect a variable number of such devices together to match customers’ performance requirements without changing the design of the inverter. Among others, ZF will use the technology in inverters for vehicles of a European car manufacturer whose production start is planned for 2025.
The inverter is the brain of electric drivetrains. It manages the flow of energy from battery to e-motor and vice versa. Inverters have become more efficient and more complex with every development step. The combination of the inverter design and the semiconductors, like silicon carbide, is the key to improving electric vehicle performance. Silicon carbide devices significantly reduce power losses in electric car inverters, as well as in wind turbine and photovoltaic inverters. Devices made with silicon carbide have decisive advantages over conventional silicon-based products, such as higher efficiency, power density and reliability. At the same time, they enable smaller and more cost-effective system designs. Simply put, an electric vehicle charges faster, drives further and has more space when equipped with silicon carbide-based semiconductors.
Original – STMicroelectronics
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DENSO CORPORATION announced that it has developed its first-ever inverter with silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors. This inverter, which is incorporated in the eAxle, an electric driving module developed by BluE Nexus Corporation, will be used in the new RZ, Lexus’ first dedicated battery electric vehicle (BEV) model has been released on March 30, 2023.
SiC power semiconductors consist of silicon and carbon that significantly reduce power loss compared with silicon (Si) power semiconductors. The verification of cruising test in a certain condition, which test was performed by BEV consisted of SiC semiconductor inverters, demonstrated inverters with SiC power semiconductor reduce power loss less than half of ones with Si semiconductor. As a result, the energy efficiency of BEVs is improved and cruising range is extended.
Key elements of developing the new inverter:
- SiC power semiconductors with DENSO’s unique trench-type metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structure improve the output per chip due to reducing the power loss caused by heat generated. The unique structure achieved high voltage and low on-resistance operation.
Key elements of manufacturing the new inverter:
- Based on the high-quality technology jointly developed by DENSO and Toyota Central R&D Labs., Inc., we utilize SiC epitaxial wafers that incorporate the results of work commissioned by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). As a result, we have halved the number of crystal defects that prevent the device from operating normally due to the disorder of the atomic arrangement of the crystal.
- By reducing crystal defects, the quality of SiC power semiconductor devices used in vehicles and their stable production are ensured.
DENSO calls its SiC technology “REVOSIC®,” and uses it to comprehensively develop technologies for products ranging from wafers to semiconductor devices and modules such as power cards.
DENSO will contribute to the realization of a carbon-neutral society through development aimed at more efficient energy management for vehicles, while also utilizing the grant from Green Innovation Fund (GI Fund), which was adopted in 2022.
Original – Denso
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Diodes Incorporated (Diodes) introduced the latest addition to its portfolio of Silicon Carbide (SiC) products: the DMWS120H100SM4 N-channel SiC MOSFET. This device addresses demand for higher efficiency and higher power density for applications such as industrial motor drives, solar inverters, data center and telecom power supplies, DC-DC converters, and electric vehicle (EV) battery chargers.
The DMWS120H100SM4 operates at a high voltage (1200V) and drain current (up to 37A) while maintaining low thermal conductivity (RθJC = 0.6°C/W), making it well-suited for applications running in harsh environments. This MOSFET has a low RDS(ON) (typical) of only 80mΩ (for a 15V gate drive) to minimize conduction losses and provide higher efficiency. In addition, the device has a gate charge of only 52nC to reduce switching losses and lower the package temperature.
This product is the first SiC MOSFET on the market in a TO247-4 package. The additional Kelvin sense pin can be connected to the source of the MOSFET to optimize the switching performance, thereby enabling even higher power densities.
Original – Diodes Incorporated
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CISSOID and Silicon Mobility have announced a far-reaching partnership to deliver a complete and modular Silicon Carbide (SiC) inverter reference design supporting electric motor drives up to 350kW/850V. The reference design includes CISSOID’s high voltage SiC-based power module, integrated Gate Driver board, Control board with Silicon Mobility’s ultra-fast and safe OLEA T222 FPCU, DC and phase current sensors, DC link capacitor and EMI filtering together with integrated liquid cooling. CISSOID will also sell and deliver Silicon Mobility’s OLEA® APP INVERTER Software for Electric Vehicle Powertrain Control providing the customer with a development platform ready for integration work.
Dave Hutton, CISSOID’s CEO commented: “Up until now, customers only really had 2 options. The first was to develop all the hardware, then integrate with third party software into their design environment. This was extremely time consuming and required in depth knowledge of SiC-based power system design. The second option was to buy an off-the-shelf inverter that, however, does not offer the ability to fully customize for the application requirements.”
Following this agreement, customers can now buy a complete SiC inverter reference design from CISSOID together with a license to use the Silicon Mobility’s OLEA® APP INVERTER control software and design on top its software application. CISSOID will also provide the technical support to integrate the inverter into the end-application.
Once the design is completed, the customer can choose to purchase the entire inverter Bill-of-Material (BOM) from CISSOID or just the SiC Intelligent Power Module (IPM) and Control Board, while purchasing other components and Inverter housing from their preferred suppliers. The customer can then integrate the inverter into their motor drive system prior moving to production.
David Fresneau, VP Marketing and Business Development at Silicon Mobility added: “This is a great opportunity for our customers to get access to our advanced e-motor control hardware and software platform and a fully integrated high performance inverter reference design from CISSOID which will significantly simplify the design process and reduce Time-to Market.
Original – CISSOID
