Trainings and Workshops

A game changer material for power electronics

Technologies and systems based on wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductors have been the focus of R&D activities and production scaling for several years now. The production and therefore the use of these semiconductor materials is significantly more complex and costly compared to the established silicon technology, but due to their outstanding properties and the associated possibilities in a variety of applications, WBG semiconductors are increasingly becoming an attractive alternative to Si semiconductors.

Silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) are currently the mainly relevant WBG semiconductor materials and are innovation drivers for e.g. power electronics in sensors & enable new solutions, especially for electromobility and renewable energies. This is primarily made possible by a higher power density and efficiency: thanks to the much higher switching speeds, systems can be designed to be significantly smaller and can also be used more universally due to their higher voltage and temperature resistance.

Innovative approaches for new possibilities

In order to fully exploit the advantages of power semiconductors based on silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN), new approaches and technologies are required in assembly and connection technology that do justice to the new possibilities and operation scenarios. This applies to both conventional packaging technologies and embedding approaches for power electronics in PCBs. For example, the electrical, thermal and mechanical design of the entire system must be closely networked and thermally and thermo-mechanically induced error mechanisms must be avoided in order to ensure a long lifetime. Excellent thermal management must also be realized for even smaller yet powerful systems.

Expertise for future-oriented developments

The researchers at Fraunhofer IZM now have many years of experience in this field, both in technology development at wafer level, in the processing of embedding PCB technology and in the construction and customer-specific development of power electronic modules with power semiconductors based on silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN).

What to expect from our Experts Sessions

In our sessions, our experts will give you a sound insight into the latest approaches and technologies, demonstrate application scenarios and address challenges and opportunities in the customer-specific development of power electronic modules.

• 30.1.2024: Power Electronics – Strategies for High Volume Production and Cost Reduction
  Prof. Eckart Hoene
• 13.2.2024: Wafer-level process technologies for SiC/GaN power electronics
  Dr. Piotr Mackowiak
• 27.2.2024: Highly reliable Interconnect Processes for Power Electronics  
  Dr. Matthias Hutter
• 12.3.2024 Novel Integration Concepts for Power Electronics – PCB Embedding for SiC and GaN Semiconductors  
  Lars Böttcher
• 26.3.2024 Reliability Challenges of Power Electronic Modules
  Dr. Stefan Wagner

In our 45-minutes expert sessions we would like to present to you trending topics in a technical presentation. Afterwards, our experts will be available for your questions and comments and a joint discussion.

Fraunhofer IZM stands for application-oriented, industry-focused research. With its technology clusters in the field of wafer and substrate process technology as well as its high competence in simulation and metrology, Fraunhofer IZM covers the entire range required for the realization of reliable electronics and their integration into applications.