US semiconductor giant Texas Instruments has announced it will upgrade its GaN-on-Si process from 6-inch wafers to 8-inch wafers to increase productivity and lower prices in the industry.
Silicon Carbide (SiC) power semiconductors boast significant advantages over Gallium Nitride devices in terms of lower switching loss and greater power density, but the technology poses several unique design challenges that must be considered before selecting one as your go-to choice.
Applications
Silicon carbide (SiC) is leading a dramatic revolution in power electronics and clean energy systems. Thanks to its superior physical and electrical properties, SiC is already revolutionizing EV inverters, renewable energy systems, motor control applications and aerospace/defense applications.
SiC’s high temperature capability makes it suitable for use in power semiconductor applications that involve high temperatures, including high-efficiency DC/DC converters, inverters for electric vehicles and uninterruptible power supplies, as well as SiC Schottky diodes used as switch components in buck-boost converters.
SiC is an ideal ceramic material in terms of mechanical, thermal and chemical stability, offering outstanding corrosion and oxidation resistance at high temperatures as well as being an efficient electrical insulator.
Modern lapidary utilizes SiC as an economical and long-wearing abrasive, due to its durability and low cost. Pure SiC is colorless; industrial product often appears brown to black due to iron impurities. Machinable SiC can be doped either n-type with nitrogen or phosphorus or p-type with beryllium, boron or aluminium for metallic conductivity purposes.
Price reduction of SiC chips should continue as Texas Instruments completes the conversion of its Dallas and Aizu fabs from 8-inch to 12-inch production lines, offering more cost-effective insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and SiC MOSFET solutions for AI server power supplies which demand greater efficiency at higher voltages than traditional servers – thus driving down costs further.
Properties
Silicon carbide (SiC) is a nonoxide ceramic used in applications requiring superior thermal and mechanical properties. SiC is known for being hard, heat and wear resistant with low thermal expansion rates and good chemical corrosion resistance properties; as well as being found in tools such as abrasives and cutting blades as well as in refractories and structural ceramics.
Due to its wide bandgap, GaN is an attractive semiconductor material with the potential to replace traditional silicon in electronic devices. GaN can operate at higher frequencies and voltages than silicon while maintaining superior heat tolerance and stability properties.
SiC has an interlocked, close-packed crystal structure comprised of two primary coordination tetrahedra formed of four carbon and four silicon atoms bonded directly together. While insoluble in water and alcohol, SiC remains resistant to most organic and inorganic acids, alkalis, and salts.
SiC is produced by heating a mixture of quartz SiO2 and carbon in a resistance furnace, producing silicon carbide powder which is then compressed or sintered into solid ceramic grains used as abrasives, steel additives and bulletproof vest ceramic plates. Single crystals grown using Lely method may then be cut into synthetic moissanite gems for cutting by machine in its green or biscuit state before diamond grinding to achieve tight tolerances after sintering.
Manufacturing
Silicon Carbide (SiC) is an extremely hard crystalline compound composed of silicon and carbon that features an extremely hard Mohs hardness rating of 9, which rivals that of diamond, as well as high fracture strength. First synthesized in late 19th century, SiC has since been extensively utilized as an abrasive in sandpaper, grinding wheels and cutting tools; as heat resistant refractories and ceramics for heat resistance and low thermal expansion; as a semiconductor substrate material in light-emitting diodes;
Edward Goodrich Acheson first patented the method used for manufacturing silicon carbide today in 1891. This process involves mixing silica and powdered coke before heating them at high temperatures in an electric furnace to cause chemical reactions that form carborundum crystals which can then be separated out into grains and powders for separation and shipping.
Sintering turns grains and powders into silicon carbide parts with specific tolerances that are then machined or ground to shape them further. Once finished being machined or ground down, sintered silicon carbide parts undergo stringent quality assurance tests including dimension checks and mechanical property assessments as well as mechanical property verification tests in order to guarantee quality products.
These materials are ideal for corrosion-resistant containers and pipelines used in petrochemical, energy and paper production as well as mechanical seal components in pumps and drive systems, along with more demanding applications such as 3D printing, ballistics or paper manufacturing.
Safety
Titanium silicon carbide (Ti3SiC2) stands out among solid lubricants due to its ability to withstand high temperatures and mechanical stresses, making it suitable for aerospace applications that must endure harsh environments like radiation resistance, thermal conductivity, plasticity or radiation resistance. Ti3SiC2 also stands out for its low friction and self-lubricating properties which make it a good alternative lubricant such as graphite or molydenum disulfide lubricants. Furthermore, Ti3SiC2 stands out due to radiation resistance, thermal conductivity as well as plasticity properties compared with solid lubricants like molydenum disulfide or graphite solid lubricants like graphite or molydenum disulfide as well as radiation resistance as well as radiation resistance, high thermal conductivity, and plasticity characteristics.
Research has demonstrated that adding MXene phases to a Ti3SiC2 or SiC-Ti3C2Tx matrix improves fracture toughness – one of its primary weaknesses – due to their ability to absorb more energy than their crystalline counterparts.
Experiments using high-energy ions have also demonstrated that MXene phase resists damage more effectively than monocarbide facets, thus accounting for their greater damage tolerance in Ti3SiC2 and SiC-Ti3C2Tx composites.
TI has designed an isolated gate driver for EV/HEV inverters that is functional safety compliant and allows engineers to extend driving range by up to seven miles per battery charge. The UCC5870-Q1 supports real-time variable gate-drive strength as well as serial peripheral interface (SPI), power transistor protections such as shunt resistor-based overcurrent protection, temperature sensor detection as well as detectable electrical short circuits (DESAT), soft turn off and two level turn off during fault conditions, respectively.
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