Commercial SiC Power Electronics

商用碳化硅电力电子器件

• 批准号: 710019
• 金额: $ 6.51万
• 依托单位: ANVIL SEMICONDUCTORS LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: GRD Proof of Concept
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2011 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=710019
• 关键词: Commercial; SiC; Power; Electronics

The current power semiconductor market ($10bn) is dominated by silicon. The performanceof which has improved steadily over the past 20 years, but has now reached the stage whereits fundamental material properties limit the capability and efficiency of power semiconductorsystems. The superior material properties of Silicon Carbide (SiC) have been recognised asthe way forward yet to date SiC transistors have very poor performance and production costsare prohibitive. This proof of concept proposal is to prove Anvil Semiconductor’s solutionsto the two main issues preventing SiC taking its potential market share ($2.6bn): the cost ofthe substrate and the ability to produce good quality gate oxides (and thus produce goodquality transistors).This work enables the development of low cost Silicon Carbide (SiC) power electroniccomponents suitable for mass market applications, the first of which are electric vehicles andpower inverters for domestic photovoltaics. Together these are predicted to account for 60%of the potential SiC market (2019).The current generation of SiC components based on the hexagonal form (4H-SiC) areinherently expensive; a 100mm wafer of 4H-SiC costs ~£1,000 compared to ~ £20 for a Siwafer. Further it is likely that 100mm will be the main 4H-SiC wafer diameter for at least thenext six years- restricting size based economies of scale. Thus 4H-SiC components areunlikely to be viable in cost sensitive applications. A low cost alternative route using a thinSiC layer deposited on a Si wafer has been demonstrated on 150mm wafers and provides aroute to even larger diameters (3C-SiC/Si). This has technical challenges but AnvilSemiconductors has some key IP which it needs to demonstrate has no technological barriersto prevent it making the components needed by system builders.An ideal application of SiC is the drive inverter for electric vehicles because of its improvedpower efficiency, increased robustness in high temperature environments and importantly thedramatic reduction of size/mass of the system. Yole (Appendix A) show that the use of SiCcomponents instead of Si would result in an overall system cost increase of $31; not anacceptable solution. However with the lower cost version of SiC proposed here, there wouldbe a system saving of ~$100. This would enable car designers to take advantage of the space,energy and robustness savings of SiC.Another application for low cost SiC devices is the power conversion in domestic scale(~5kW) photovoltaic panels. Although current Si-based inverters are very efficient (97%),they are bulky and expensive, and have slow switching speeds leading to the need forphysically large passive components and heatsinks. SiC components will reduce the size andcosts of the capacitors, inductors and system cooling needed. However, a componenttechnology with similar costs to Si is essential in order to achieve an overall reduction insystem cost, ie 3C-SiC/Si.

目前的功率半导体市场（100亿美元）由硅主导。在过去的20年里，它的性能稳步提高，但现在已经达到了一个阶段，它的基本材料特性限制了功率半导体系统的能力和效率。碳化硅（SiC）优越的材料特性已被公认为前进的方向，但迄今为止，SiC晶体管的性能非常差，生产成本高得令人望而却步。这个概念验证提案是为了证明Anvil半导体公司的解决方案，以解决阻碍SiC获得潜在市场份额（26亿美元）的两个主要问题：衬底成本和生产高质量栅极氧化物（从而生产高质量晶体管）的能力。这项工作使适合大众市场应用的低成本碳化硅（SiC）电力电子元件的开发成为可能，其中第一个是电动汽车和家用光伏电池的电源逆变器。预计这些合计将占潜在SiC市场的60%（2019年）。目前基于六角形（4H-SiC）的SiC元件本身就很昂贵；一块100毫米的4H-SiC晶圆成本约为1000英镑，而硅晶圆成本约为20英镑。此外，至少在未来六年内，100毫米很可能成为主要的4H-SiC晶圆直径，这将限制基于尺寸的规模经济。因此，4H-SiC组件不太可能在成本敏感的应用中可行。一种低成本的替代方法是在150mm硅片上沉积薄sic层，并提供了更大直径（3C-SiC/Si）的方法。这有技术上的挑战，但AnvilSemiconductors有一些关键的IP，它需要证明没有技术障碍来阻止它制造系统制造商所需的组件。SiC的理想应用是电动汽车的驱动逆变器，因为它提高了功率效率，增加了高温环境下的稳健性，重要的是大大减小了系统的尺寸/质量。Yole（附录A）显示，使用sic组件代替Si组件将导致整体系统成本增加31美元；这不是一个可接受的解决方案。然而，这里提出的低成本SiC版本，将为系统节省约100美元。这将使汽车设计师能够利用碳化硅节省的空间、能源和坚固性。低成本SiC器件的另一个应用是国内规模（~5kW）光伏板的功率转换。虽然目前基于硅的逆变器非常高效（97%），但它们体积庞大且昂贵，并且开关速度慢，导致需要物理上较大的无源元件和散热器。SiC组件将减少电容器、电感和系统冷却所需的尺寸和成本。然而，为了实现整体系统成本的降低，一种与硅成本相似的组件技术是必不可少的，即3C-SiC/Si。