Silicon Carbide (SiC)

Our Silicon Carbide CoolSiC™ semiconductor solutions are the next step towards an energy-smart world. Combining revolutionary Silicon Carbide (SiC) technology with extensive system understanding, best-in-class packaging, and manufacturing excellence, Infineon CoolSiC™ enables you to develop radical new product designs with best system cost-performance ratio.

Silicon Carbide (SiC) devices belong to the so-called wide band gap semiconductor group. They offer a number of attractive characteristics for high voltage power semiconductors when compared to commonly used silicon (Si). In particular, the much higher breakdown field strength and thermal conductivity of SiC allow creating devices which outperform by far the corresponding Si ones. This way you can reach unattainable efficiency levels in your designs.

The use of SiC based power semiconductor solutions has shown a huge increase over the last years, it is a revolution to rely on. Driving forces behind this market development are the following trends: energy saving, size reduction, system integration and improved reliability.

The combination of a fast silicon based switch with a SiC diode – is often termed a “hybrid” solution. In recent years Infineon has manufactured several millions of hybrid modules and has seen them installed in various customer products.

Over the next few years, SiC solutions will expand into other application fields such as industrial or traction drives. The reasons for this are the market forces pushing for loss reduction, not only for the sake of improved efficiency but also for smaller packages – resulting from reduced heat sink requirements. As shown in figure above, SiC is already being used for high end and niche solutions. Today’s designs use these benefits to reduce system cost in specific application areas.