Starkville, Mississippi, August 24, 2009 – SemiSouth today announced award of its third US
Patent in 2009, and 18th overall in SiC Power Electronics
technology. The patents cover methods of
making normally-off SiC JFETs, self-aligned SiC fabrication methods, and
integration of SiC JFET, diodes, and circuits.
According to Dr. Jeff Casady, Chief Technology Officer and Vice
President of Business Development, the recent patents were the result of focused
efforts, led by SemiSouth engineers, in pushing the technology forward for both
near-term and long-term products. “Our
normally-off SiC JFET, the most energy efficient and cost effective SiC power
transistor switch, is an extremely important product to SemiSouth and its
customers. After sampling the product
globally for over one year, we are seeing very positive signs of adoption by
our customer base in solar inverters, telecom power supplies, and other
applications.”
Dr. David
Sheridan, SemiSouth’s Director of Engineering, commented that “These specific
patents allow us to further strength the intellectual property we have around
the normally-off SiC JFET, including different process designs and methods to
integrate for added chip functionality in the future.”
SiC is an emerging
semiconductor technology enabling energy efficient operation of power conversion
and power management in telecom power supplies, inverters in solar and
high-frequency welding, future automotive electric vehicle platforms, and many
other products. The true promise of SiC
is its ability to make power supplies and power inverters up to 50-75% more
energy efficient, operate at up to four to eight times higher frequency, and as
a result run cooler and be physically much smaller in size. As an example, SiC
power JFETs are expected to increase the 'fuel' efficiency of hybrid electric
vehicles and help make them more affordable for consumers.
About SemiSouth Laboratories, Inc.
Founded in 2000, with offices
in Austin, Texas
and Starkville,
Mississippi,
SemiSouth focuses on SiC power devices and electronics, as well as SiC
merchant epitaxy. It has sold prodcts globally through direct
sales or distributors since 2005. It introduced the world's first
commercial, cost-effective normally-off SiC JFET in 2008, which have
enabled world-record energy efficiencies for its customers' products.
For more information, visit our website at: www.semisouth.com.
