This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Power Electronics ♦ news digest


savings can result in gains of over $6,000 in battery cost, or 8 percent of the vehicle’s cost.


“Efficient power electronics is key to a smaller battery size, which in turn has a positive cascading impact on wiring, thermal management, packaging, and weight of electric vehicles,” said Pallavi Madakasira, Lux Research Analyst and lead author of the report ‘Silicon vs. WBG: Demystifying Prospects of GaN and SiC in the Electrified Vehicle Market.’


“In addition to power electronic modules, opportunities from a growing number of consumer applications - such as infotainment and screens - will double the number of power electronic components built into a vehicle,” she added.


Lux Research analysts have evaluated system- level benefits WBG materials are bringing to the automotive industry, and predicted a timeline for commercial roll-outs of WBG-based power electronics.


Among their findings were that at 2 percent power savings, if battery costs fall below $250/kWh, SiC diodes will be the only economic solution in EVs requiring a large battery. For plug-in electric vehicles (PHEVs), the threshold power savings needs to 5 percent.


They also forecast that SiC diodes will attain commercialisation sooner than GaN, being adopted in vehicles by 2020.


Government funding, they add, is driving WBG adoption. The US, Japan and the UK, among others, are funding research and development in power electronics. The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Power Electronics and Electric Motors is spending $69 million this year and defining performance and cost targets; the Japanese government funds a joint industry and university R&D program that includes Toyota, Honda and Nissan.


Swedish scientists build 500° C SiC bipolar op amp


First high temperature operation of fully integrated device


Scientists at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden have built a monolithic bipolar operational amplifier fabricated in SiC technology with a 4H crystal structure.


Published in the IEEE’s Electron Device Letters, this is the first report on high temperature operation of a fully integrated SiC bipolar opamp. According to the team, it demonstrates the feasibility of this technology for high temperature analogue integrated circuits.


The op amp has been used in an inverting negative feedback amplifier configuration. Wide temperature operation of the amplifier is demonstrated from 25 to 500°C.


The measured closed loop gain is around 40 dB for all temperatures whereas the 3dB bandwidth increases from 270kHz at 25°C to 410kHz at 500°C. The opamp achieves 1.46 V/µs slew rate and 0.25 percent total harmonic distortion.


Full details of the work are detailed in ‹A Monolithic, 500 °C Operational Amplifier in 4H-SiC Bipolar Technology’ by R. Hedayati et al, Electron Device Letters, IEEE (Volume: 35, Issue: 7)


Japanese group reduces


defects in SiC transistors Dielectric film growth technique could improve next generation SiC power devices


A research group at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Engineering has found a way to reduce defects in silicon carbide devices to improve performance.


SiC devices offer the potential for lower energy loss than conventional silicon devices, but SiC transistors suffer from high resistance and low reliability, mainly due to defects formed at the interface between SiC gate dielectric film. Such defects, caused by impurities and atomic excess or deficiency at the interface, need to be reduced to


Issue VI 2014 www.compoundsemiconductor.net 119


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160