Wide-Bandgap Power Devices: Adoption Gathers Momentum

As power electronics continues to extend into renewable energy markets, smart grids, smart homes, transportation electrification, electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EV/HEVs), and other emerging industrial and medical applications, more designers are attracted to the wide-bandgap (WBG) power devices, e.g., silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). In the past few years, engineers have spent time understanding the virtues of these emerging power devices and their drawbacks, e.g., reliability, cost, and availability. Today, many analysts believe that engineers are transitioning from education mode to implementation mode. According to research firm Yole D?veloppement's technology and market analyst Hong Lin, "We are gradually going from the customer awareness and education stage to the customer trial and adoption stage. And this is especially true for SiC transistors."