Using TCAD To Simulate Wide-Bandgap Materials For Electronics Design


Wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductors are a class of materials that can offer a range of advantages over silicon. These materials can operate at higher voltages and higher temperatures, serving as critical enablers of innovation in Power and RF applications and functioning in a wider range of environments that are sometimes extreme. Electronics applications benefit from these wide-bandgap materials... » read more

Wide Bandgap Semiconductors: What Modeling Challenges Must We Overcome


As power electronics shrink in size, the demands on power, frequency, and efficiency grow exponentially. The semiconductor industry is leaning heavily into wide bandgap materials like gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) to help meet these demands. Recent research projects that the global GaN semiconductor devices market will grow at a CAGR of 25.4% from 2023 to 2030. However, the ... » read more

SiC Growth For EVs Is Stressing Manufacturing


The electrification of vehicles is fueling demand for silicon carbide power ICs, but it also is creating challenges in finding and identifying defects in those chips. Coinciding with this is a growing awareness about just how immature SiC technology is and how much work still needs to be done — and how quickly that has to happen. Automakers are pushing heavily into electric vehicles, and t... » read more

Power Semiconductor Devices: Thermal Management and Packaging


A technical paper titled "Thermal management and packaging of wide and ultra-wide bandgap power devices: a review and perspective" was published by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and Univ Lyon, CNRS. "This paper provides a timely review of the thermal management of WBG and UWBG power devices with an emphasis on packaged dev... » read more

Technical Paper Round-up: June 14


New technical papers added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library this week. [table id=33 /] Semiconductor Engineering is in the process of building this library of research papers. Please send suggestions (via comments section below) for what else you’d like us to incorporate. If you have research papers you are trying to promote, we will review them to see if they are a good fit f... » read more

Gallium Oxide Power Electronic Roadmap


New research paper addressing challenges in using gallium oxide. ABSTRACT "Gallium Oxide has undergone rapid technological maturation over the last decade, pushing it to the forefront of ultra-wide band gap semiconductor technologies. Maximizing the potential for a new semiconductor system requires a concerted effort by the community to address technical barriers which limit performance. Du... » read more

Parasitic Characterization Comes To Power Design Simulation


Two power design challenges are taking teams into unfamiliar territory. Wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors target greater efficiency and density. Stricter EMI compliance regulations now come standard in mission-critical industries. Power design practices are still catching up. Simulation often takes a back seat to respinning hardware prototypes until success. What’s missing that could make sim... » read more

Review on Driving Circuits for Wide-Bandgap Semiconductor Switching Devices for Mid- to High-Power Applications


Abstract: "Wide-bandgap (WBG) material-based switching devices such as gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) and silicon carbide (SiC) metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) are considered very promising candidates for replacing conventional silicon (Si) MOSFETs for various advanced power conversion applications, mainly because of their capabi... » read more

Revving Up SiC And GaN


Silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) are becoming more popular for power electronics, particularly in automotive applications, driving down costs as volumes scale up and increasing the demand for better tools to design, verify, and test these wide-bandgap devices. Both SiC and GaN are proving essential in areas such as battery management in electric vehicles. They can handle much ... » read more

Improved Performance of GaN-Based Ultraviolet LEDs with the Stair-like Si-Doping n-GaN Structure


Abstract "A method to improve the performance of ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs) with stair-like Si-doping GaN layer is investigated. The high-resolution X-ray diffraction shows that the UV-LED with stair-like Si-doping GaN layer possesses better quality and a lower dislocation density. In addition, the experimental results demonstrate that light output power and wall plug effici... » read more

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