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SemiSouth Announces
New Silicon Carbide
Manufacturing Patent
New Silicon Carbide process patent eliminates
significant manufacturing bottleneck
AUSTIN, Texas, March 19, 2008 — SemiSouth Laboratories, Inc. a
leading provider of silicon carbide (SiC) based semiconductor technology, today
announced award of its twelfth U.S. Patent. Further solidifying its leadership position,
SemiSouth now owns or has exclusive license to a total of 12 patent awards in
the field of SiC Power Electronics.
The new patent award, 7,314,799
– “Self-Aligned Trench Field Effect Transistors With Regrown Gates And Bipolar
Junction Transistors With Regrown Base Contact Regions And Methods Of Making”
enables SemiSouth to eliminate the need for implantation in the fabrication
process of SiC power JFETs. This patent
was the result of focused efforts by SemiSouth’s Technology Development lead
scientists in reducing the manufacturing costs of silicon carbide power
semiconductors. This will serve to
deliver a cost savings of more than 10-15% per wafer.
SiC is an emerging
semiconductor technology proven to reduce energy losses, enabling energy
efficient operation of power conversion and power management applications. The
commercial benefit of SemiSouth’s SiC technology is its ability to make power
supplies, motor drives and inverters more energy efficient, more reliable and
physically smaller in size.
One of the challenges of SiC semiconductor
manufacturers has been reducing production costs. “With this patented technology, we are able
to eliminate the need for implantation in the fabrication process of our
silicon carbide JFETs. This not only
saves on costs, but reduces cycle time and improves yield,” said Kenney
Roberts, SemiSouth’s Chief Operating Officer.
The principal markets SemiSouth
serves includes solar power, computing, motor drive, automotive and
mil-aerospace applications. SemiSouth’s SiC JFET is a replacement for silicon
MOSFETs, IGBTs, or BJTs and can eliminate more than 50% of the energy losses in
power converters used in these industries. In the price sensitive automotive
industry, SiC JFETs are expected to revolutionize the design of hybrid electric
vehicles, thus making them more fuel efficient and more affordable for
consumers.
“This new technique greatly
simplifies our manufacturing process and is a significant milestone in our
ongoing cost reduction roadmap,” said Dr. Jeff Casady, SemiSouth’s Chief
Technical Officer. “We are very pleased
with this patent award.”
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