Commercial SiC Power Electronics

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，其性能稳步提高，但现在已经达到了其基本材料特性限制功率涡轮机系统的能力和效率的阶段。碳化硅（SiC）的上级材料特性已被公认为是未来的发展方向，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。这一概念验证提案旨在证明Anvil Semiconductor解决了阻碍SiC占据其潜在市场份额的两个主要问题（26亿美元）：衬底的成本和生产高质量栅极氧化物的能力（从而生产出高质量的晶体管）。这项工作使低成本碳化硅（SiC）电力电子元件的发展适合大众市场的应用，第一个是电动车和家用光电转换器。这些预计将占潜在SiC市场的60%（2019年）。基于六边形形式（4 H-SiC）的当前一代SiC组件本身就很昂贵; 100 mm 4 H-SiC晶圆的成本约为1，000英镑，而Si晶圆的成本约为20英镑。此外，至少在未来六年内，100 mm可能会成为主要的4 H-SiC晶圆直径-限制基于尺寸的规模经济。因此，4 H-SiC元件在成本敏感的应用中不太可能可行。一种低成本的替代路线，使用薄SiC层沉积在硅晶片上已被证明在150毫米的晶圆，并提供了aroute甚至更大的直径（3C-SiC/Si）。这是一项技术挑战，但Anvil Semiconductors拥有一些关键的IP，它需要证明没有技术障碍，以阻止它制造系统构建者所需的组件。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，提高了高温环境下的鲁棒性，重要的是大大减少了系统的尺寸/质量。Yole（附录A）表明，使用SiC组件代替Si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，使用这里提出的较低成本的SiC版本，系统将节省约100美元。这将使汽车设计师能够利用SiC节省的空间、能源和坚固性。低成本SiC器件的另一个应用是家用规模（约5 kW）光伏板的功率转换。虽然目前的硅基逆变器非常高效（97%），但它们体积庞大且价格昂贵，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元件将减小电容器、电感器和系统冷却所需的尺寸和成本。然而，为了实现系统成本的整体降低，与Si成本相似的组件技术是必不可少的，即3C-SiC/Si。

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.