Development of a new disruptive semiconductor technology to produce more efficient, smaller, lighter, and more robust power switches.

Objective

Anvil Semiconductors has developed a unique technology to enable the production of Silicon Carbide (SiC) power switches at a similar cost to conventional Silicon by growing thin layers of SiC by heteroepitaxy on Silicon wafers rather than using expensive bulk SiC substrates. This innovation enables wafer costs to be reduced by a factor of 20 and opens up the possibility of fabricating SiC devices at similar costs to those of Silicon. Power devices such as MOSFETS and Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs) utilising Anvil’s SiC technology instead of silicon enable systems to be more efficient, smaller, lighter, cheaper and more robust. Electronic systems for electric vehicles, industrial machines, photovoltaics, LED lighting, wind turbines, power factor correction, uninterruptible power supplies, and the Smart Grid, will all be more efficient, smaller, more robust and cheaper. Examples of customer benefits from the use of such devices include: 10% savings on fuel consumption in a hybrid car; critical efficiency savings (4%) and size reduction (25%) in solar inverters; 10% increase in efficiency power usage in data centres.