Silicon carbide (SiC) taking over power semiconductor market

The DC voltage produced by solar PV cells is not in the right range of voltage to power most of the electrical and electronics appliances and devices. Even a mobile phone cannot be charged directly from a solar PV without using DC/DC converter circuit because voltages produced by Solar PV is unregulated and its voltage rating is wide. Most of the appliances in the home which operate from AC mains voltage require an inverter to convert solar DC voltage into AC mains voltage. There is lot of power switching involved both in inverters and in converter. The traditional pure-silicon power switching devices MOSFET, rectifier-diodes and IGBT used in inverters and converters are found to be energy in-efficient compared to compound semiconductor material based power switching devices for their ability to reduce switching losses, and increase the power conversion efficiency of both inverters and converters. The wide band gap compound semiconductor material silicon carbide (SiC) offers higher thermal conductivity as well as higher breakdown voltage compared to silicon. They can switch at higher frequencies at higher efficiencies and by generating less heat compared to pure-silicon semiconductor devices. There is also another important benefit of size, SiC semiconductor devices have higher power density compared to silicon devices, so they occupy less space for the same power. Not ...