Page 3 - PEN eBook March 2022

VIEWPOINT

Wide-Bandgap

Semiconductors

Power electronics involves a whole range of critical applications, from electrification to smart grids.
It is a fundamental pillar for the entire industry to meet climate-change demands and involves

increasing energy efficiency, reducing our carbon footprint through new materials, and adopting
new circuit topologies. Physical limitations prevent current silicon technology from achieving the
higher power density, miniaturization, and energy-conversion efficiency that the market needs from
power products to meet growing environmental concerns. Wide-bandgap (WBG) silicon carbide and
gallium nitride materials enable significant efficiency improvements in applications such as traction
inverters for SiC and adapters/chargers for GaN. SiC and GaN technologies have grown enormously
over the past few years, proving to be commercially available energy-saving technologies. These

two WBG semiconductors complement each other to address a wide variety of applications in
which energy efficiency is vital. However, silicon products are expected to co-exist with WBG
products due to their cost-effectiveness in some low-power applications.

In this issue, Infineon Technologies’ Zhong Fang Wang, principal applications engineer, and Matt
Yang, senior staff applications engineer, explain how Infineon’s CoolGaN Integrated Power Stage
technology can be applied in active-clamp flyback, hybrid flyback, and LLC converter topologies.
This way, designing charger and adapter solutions is made quicker and easier, leading to smaller
and lighter products or products that provide more power from a device of the same size to charge

devices faster or charge multiple devices from one adapter.

Other topics are drain-current characteristics of enhancement-mode GaN HEMTs, thermal
management, electric vehicles, battery technology, and wireless charging. A combination of electrical
failure analysis (EFA) and physical failure analysis (PFA) can lead to a deeper understanding of fault
mechanisms and, ultimately, improved performance, reliability, and manufacturing yield. We will
analyze advanced EFA and PFA analytical tools to localize and characterize subtle electrical issues

faster and with greater accuracy in WBG materials.

Yours Sincerely,
Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio
Editor-in-Chief, Power Electronics News

MARCH 2022 | www.powerelectronicsnews.com 3 3