Power Electronics Based on Wide-Bandgap Semiconductors: Opportunities and Challenges

TLDR

The expanding electric‑vehicle market is driving demand for efficient, reliable power electronics, and the performance, size, and cost of these systems depend heavily on power semiconductor devices; wide‑bandgap materials such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride offer superior electrical and thermal properties but require mature fabrication and competitive pricing for widespread adoption. This paper presents a perspective on power electronics based on wide‑bandgap semiconductors, examining fundamental material characteristics and their potential impact on the power semiconductor device market. The authors illustrate application cases with benchmarks against silicon implementations, evaluating both performance metrics and system cost. The benchmarks show that wide‑bandgap devices achieve higher performance while maintaining competitive system costs compared to silicon devices.

Abstract

The expansion of the electric vehicle market is driving the request for efficient and reliable power electronic systems for electric energy conversion and processing. The efficiency, size, and cost of a power system is strongly related to the performance of power semiconductor devices, where massive industrial investments and intense research efforts are being devoted to new wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors, such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). The electrical and thermal properties of SiC and GaN enable the fabrication of semiconductor power devices with performance well beyond the limits of silicon. However, a massive migration of the power electronics industry towards WBG materials can be obtained only once the corresponding fabrication technology reaches a sufficient maturity and a competitive cost. In this paper, we present a perspective of power electronics based on WBG semiconductors, from fundamental material characteristics of SiC and GaN to their potential impacts on the power semiconductor device market. Some application cases are also presented, with specific benchmarks against a corresponding implementation realized with silicon devices, focusing on both achievable performance and system cost.