Anvil to develop low cost 3C-SiC power module
Anvil Semiconductors, a UK developer of 3C-SiC devices, and the UK Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), assisted by a grant from Innovate UK, are developing a low cost hydrid module to take advantage of the benefits of 3C-SiC in a close coupled low inductance module that enables high efficiency power conversion.
Driven by competition, demand and legislation, designers of products are striving for increased efficiency, smaller size and weight and lower cost, but they are squeezed between the efficiency constraints of silicon and the high costs of today's 4H-SiC devices.
Anvil's SiC technology enables the development of devices with the efficiency and size benefits of SiC but at the cost of silicon. However the benefits that can be delivered by using SiC devices are limited by the switching speeds that are often restricted by the inductances introduced by non-close coupling of discrete devices and ancillaries.
Anvil and MTC are using 3C-SiC devices and the most recent low cost packaging techniques to develop a low cost hybrid module to allow close coupling of devices and ancillaries, reduce inductances and achieve switching speeds of 100KHz. The use of 3C-SiC provides reduced resistive losses and low sensitivity of device characteristics to temperature, so enabling close coupling of components.
This delivers significantly increased efficiencies and reduced size and weight by removing the need for some ancillary components and heat sinks. Market opportunities for such a module exist across a wide range of applications including LED lighting, PV converters, general power supplies, electric car charging and EV/HEV.
