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Silicon Carbide Power – A Powerful Option For Applications That Demand Cost, Efficiency and Reliability

Silicon carbide power offers industry-leading performance and reliability, enabling electric vehicles to travel further on each charge and increasing renewable energy systems and telecom infrastructure’s efficiencies.

Wide bandgap semiconductors like SiC enable electrical current to flow more effectively, increasing efficiency and power density. But how does this technology differ from traditional silicon?

Increased Efficiency

Silicon Carbide semiconductors provide superior thermal, voltage, and frequency management than their silicon-based counterparts, making SiC an excellent solution for applications requiring the optimal balance between power density, cost efficiency, efficiency and reliability.

SiC is the ideal choice for high-speed applications that must operate continuously, such as data center power supplies and renewable energy inverters, due to its superior energy efficiency. Boasting 10x breakdown electric field strength, lower ON resistance per area and chemical inertness properties, SiC boasts superior performance even under harsh environmental conditions.

SiC’s increased efficiency can assist automotive designers in designing more efficient traction inverters, which in turn allows longer driving ranges while decreasing size, weight and costs of battery management systems and charging stations.

Wolfspeed presents this webinar on how SiC can be used to optimize EV fast-charger designs with their fourth generation SiC MOSFET technology for fast charging inverters, detailing its benefits such as 30% lower losses and 40% fewer components, combined with faster switching speed to create more compact, efficient, and reliable charging solutions for drivers and customers. Click the button below to download its presentation.

Lower BOM Costs

BOM cost analysis provides invaluable insight into product manufacturing costs. Accurate cost estimations help manufacturers optimize production costs and enhance their bottom line; this includes analyzing unit prices, labor charges per hour, overhead costs and internal expenses as well as historical costs that help detect patterns of price fluctuation.

Hidden costs may arise due to various sources, including supply chain disruptions, shortages and price spikes in raw materials. These factors can quickly drive production costs up and affect profitability; in order to effectively identify these hidden expenses requires employing lean manufacturing processes; employing MRP software for tight inventory control and engaging in value engineering techniques to simplify product designs.

Wide bandgap silicon carbide power modules help manufacturers reduce overall BOM costs by operating at lower temperatures and energy losses, which in turn result in less heatsinks and power components needed for manufacturing purposes and an ultimately smaller footprint. As a result, systems constructed using wide bandgap modules tend to be lighter, smaller, more cost-effective systems than their silicon counterparts.

Higher Power Density

Silicon carbide power devices offer higher power density than their silicon-based counterparts. Their thinner material reduces losses associated with conduction and switching losses, making their power supplies more energy-efficient than those made of conventional silicon materials – helping industrial applications like automation equipment, data centers and electric vehicle chargers save both space and costs.

Power semiconductors made of silicon carbide are 10x more power-efficient than their silicon counterparts, meaning that they can deliver more current with equal physical size while producing less heat – giving rise to increased device efficiencies and longer lifespans for power supply components that must operate reliably in extreme heat/voltage environments.

Silicon Carbide (SiC) differs significantly from silicon in that its bandgap is wider and can operate at much higher temperatures and frequencies, providing power conversion with improved efficiency. Furthermore, SiC boasts lower on-state resistance and switching losses than silicon for enhanced power conversion efficiency.

SiC power semiconductors offer higher voltage withstand capacities (up to 15,000 V), less on-state resistance, and high temperature/radiation-hardened performance without degradation compared to silicon-based devices, making them suitable for applications involving AC-DC converters or motor drives that require high voltages without degradation or increased on-state resistance.

Wide Bandgap

Power semiconductors such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) boast wider bandgaps that enable devices to run at higher temperatures while still remaining efficient; this reduces heat loss while improving efficiency. Furthermore, these materials feature higher critical electrical field density and electron saturation velocity compared to traditional silicon devices, thus improving efficiency even further.

At their core, SiC and GaN semiconductors enable designers to build more energy-efficient products that are smaller, lighter and suitable for more applications than silicon counterparts – particularly important when creating high-power electronics that operate at higher voltages, frequencies and temperatures – such as those found in electric vehicles, data centers, renewable energy systems and battery chargers.

Qorvo’s wide-bandgap power components are actively driving hybrid and all-electric vehicle adoption by enabling designers to shrink size, lower weight and add functionality without adding bulk and complexity to existing designs with silicon components. This enables manufacturers to produce more competitive vehicles in an industry where consumer demand for EVs continues to skyrocket.

SiC is available in different varieties known as polytypes that depend on how silicon and carbon atoms are arranged along the crystal axis. Selecting an ideal polytype for an application is key to optimizing its performance – different crystal structures allow users to customize its electrical and thermal properties according to individual application needs.

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