The maturity of a technological sector is reflected in the emergence of new technical solutions for a wide range of applications. This was the case for the silicon sector, with GTO, bipolar, MOSFET and IGBT components...
Their development has had a major impact on the field of power electronics, enabling the design of new, more efficient energy conversion architectures and providing innovative technical solutions in many areas of electrical engineering.
SiC (silicon carbide) is not yet as mature as silicon. However, the availability of components with higher performance than their Si counterparts means that they can be used in a wide range of applications. These new components should make it possible to push back the performance limits already achieved by the silicon sector in high-voltage and high-temperature applications, for example.
The
[D 3 120]
dossier presents SiC power component manufacturing technologies. This dossier [D 3 122] presents the state of the art for a number of "flagship applications", highlighting the benefits of SiC technology for power electronics, without claiming to be exhaustive in content, but with the aim of illustrating the potential of this new technology.