Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a very hard and inert semiconductor material which has been used in abrasive products such as grinding wheels for more than one hundred years. Today, high quality monocrystal SiC substrates with diameters up to 100 mm are commercially available and their main application is light-emitting diodes. SiC is becoming more widely used in power applications such as power factor control in power supplies.
SiC has a wide band gap of 3.2 eV which is almost three times the band gap of Si (1.1 eV).
This quality enables semiconductor devices made out of this material to maintain a satisfactory function even at higher temperatures.
Silicon Carbide’s wide band gap makes it possible to produce power transistors that block high voltages and have low series resistance, leading to low conduction losses. Thanks to the low conduction losses, the chip size can be reduced and it is possible to switch the transistors with low switching losses. The high band gap also enables power transistors to switch high voltage and current at high temperatures. In conclusion, TranSiC's power transistors are electrically robust, with excellent short circuit capabilities and extensive radiation resistance.
