Wide Band Gap Devices are Mature PCIM Europe Overview

The demand for better efficiency in systems can only be achieved with better semiconductors that have less loss in conduction and switching in respect to established devices in silicon.

 

Our world demands more and more communication and transport and electronics is the key element to drive this. So, the consumption of energy is growing, and any wasted power energy needs to be avoided. The wide band gap devices have now reached a level to be the first source for this new design.

The benefits are in hand to save losses and get systems much more efficient and also shrink the physical size as we can now go to higher switching with the result of smaller passive components. Specifically, the transformer and inductors can be much smaller.

My podium at PCIM Europe was a ‘speed dating presentation’ of the leading industry what we have achieved so far. The session took its traditional place during the afternoon of the second day and first to present were the SiC manufactures highlighting their progress which was followed by the GaN manufactures.

The following draws a short highlight of each presentation. For more details or to contact the companies who took part I have included the URLs.

 

Mitsubishi Electric

Mitsubishi as a SiC chip and module manufacture showed reliability information for SiC MOSFETs.2nd generation SiC MOSFETs with JFET doping showed no significant shifts during HTGB tests. ( +/- 20 V, 150°C 1000 h test ).Wolfspeed in addition to SiC chip and device manufacture announced a significant capacity planning for new investment into production equipment.

 

Wolfspeed

Wolfspeed is now focusing into automotive power train. Reliability in automotive is a mandatory subject.

 

Rohm

Rohm is building a new fab in Japan to serve the market demand. Automotive is one focus in addition to transportation and wind power. There are 96 parts in mass production at Rohm.

 

United SiC

United SiC is filling out the widest discrete SiC offering. A special focus at United SiC is the SiC cascode device. Also, here is the electric automobile one focus that is served beside IT infrastructure and renewables.

 

 

Infineon

Infineon is claiming the broadest portfolio of CoolSiC MOSFET modules in Easy package in the market. Targeted areas are automotive with the infrastructure for charging and traction.Photovoltaic is also mentioned.

 

WeEn

WeEn semiconductors is offering SiC 1200 volt diodes. WeEn SiC diodes are designed by a team of experts pioneering this technology for over 10 years.

 

GeneSiC

GeneSiC’s presented SiC MOSFET and Schottky MPS rectifiers performance.SiC MOSFET successfully conducts a single-pulse avalanche energy (EAS) of 1.07 J (14.1 J/cm2 normalized to the total chip size), at a peak drain current of 5.5 A, and drain voltage of 5100 V.

 

Littelfuse

Littelfuse showed SiC MOSFETs stable under unclamped inductive switching.

Maximum UIS capability scales with die active area:

EAV=1000 mJ for 1200V, 80 mOhm (~10 J/cm2).

No parametric change observed for:

Single shots of 80% of Max UIS.

100k shots of 25% of Max UIS

 

ON semiconductor

ON semiconductor will have completed Silicon Carbide vertical integration by 2020SiC power modules will continue release during 2019. First Company to release SiC technology on 6” wafers in 2015.

 

EPC

Here is the extract from GaN device progress:

EPC demonstrated with eGaN replacing MOSFETs in 48 V DC-DC applications like cloud computing, artificial intelligence & deep learning, mild-hybrid cars & trucks.eGaN technology is changing the World and improving rapidly.

 

Infineon

Infineon presented the CoolGaN product roadmap.More than 20,000 systems in the field (40,000 CoolGaNTM devices) have not caused any field failures < MTBF > 30 X 106 Hours (limited by current operating hours) >. This compliments Infineon Technologies cumulative equivalent of 26 x109 device hours of biased life operation.Normal and abnormal peak currents must be limited to stay within GaN max ratings.

 

Navitas

Navitas has the world’s first GaNFast™ power ICs and the ICs are much faster than any discrete solution up to 40MHz switching, 5x higher density & 20% lower system cost.

World’s smallest Charger 42W (30W-C + 18W-A) + Battery Pack (5,000 mAhr)(31.5 x 85.5 x 81.5 mm)

 

GaN Systems

GaN Systems has GaN-on-Silicon transistors for the power conversion market. GaN Systems is serving industry’s most extensive and highest-performance products with enhancement mode devices of 100V & 650V for industry-best performance.

 

Exagan

Exagan had shown GaN technology & System level product solution. Their G-FET™ series demonstrates robustness and performance.The component features include the embedded driver with digital control signals, the slew-rate adjustment for EMI, full protections (OCP, TSD, UVLO) with digital fault reporting, auto-diagnostic for safe operation and accurate peak current sensing (3%@500 mA).

 

Transphorm

Transphorm presented the two main categories that are driving the adoption. First the competitive advancement: differentiating their product lines to outperform the competition. Second the market disruption: today’s available technology is unable to meet end customer’s needs.Transphorm GaN is in high volume production.

 

Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments has presented the LMG341x with transient overvoltage capabil-ity for surge robustness. This is analogous to the avalanche rating of silicon. Complete GaN, driver and protection in single package forfast and easy system design.

 

ON Semiconductor

ON Semiconductor provides a unique Eco-system focused around WBG solutionsThe GaN HEMTs geared towards ruggedness and speed. GaN drivers are for reliable and fast switching and SPICE based Physical Models for HEMTs.

 

Bodos Power

We can generally state that GaN is serving higher voltages up to line voltages in Europe. SiC is able to have capability for several kilo volts. The challenge is to get the acceptance to the broad range of designers. Therefore, I have the WBG Power Conference, together with AspenCore, taking place in Munich in December and I will share further details of this event with you soon. Wide band gap semiconductors will continue to be part of solutions for future design. Bodos Power Website