We know that the manufacture of electronic components has been reducing their costs in recent years. But what are the main challenges to facilitate the reduction of component costs?
I think one of the main challenges is to pursuit a higher and more stable control and reproducibility on the novel synthesis methods which are emerging from the research in nanotechnology, and which are arriving at the industrial production facilities, i.e. CVD, or the different novel forms of ALD (Atomic Layer Deposition) for solar cell manufacturing.
As well as the case of when chemical deposition methods are used.
So we need more research not just on materials, or on trying to pursuit better and higher performance in the materials, but also think in how we can lower the cost when arriving to the production scale, working in the efficincy and reliability of the novel manufacture techniques.
Quality, or to have(+/- 10%) tolerance limit, or to reduced rejection is the main issue to deal with, in manufacturing power electronics components economically. There are many issues, and to deal with correct one is the needed intallegency of Quality engineers....
isolation for high voltage, heat transfer, power connection to motor phases, EMC filters
-The right robust design with minimum number of required components; specifically the costly components such as magnetic.
-The robust control design for the application with enough protection and safety margin.
-Doing simulation and verification of all concepts before any lab work to save on time and the team lab work for debugging and avoid multiple tape outs that is the main source of the increased cost.
- there seems to be a lot of new wide band gap power electronics coming out/on the market that are quite expensive compared to the Si based IGBT's or MOSFETS that we have been using for a while now.
- to reduce costs we just need to find a way of simplifying fabrication methods and materials.
- one stumbling block of GaN is the production of "cheap" GaN wafers needed for a GaN-on-GaN based fabrication which shows the "best" characteristics so far.
- there is also a lot of research in GaN on Si wafers which is more cost effective however requires more sophisticated fabrication techniques to achieve performance requirements.
Once design and manufacturing processes are optimized, system cost is always limited by material costs. Power converter BOMs are usually dominated by power semiconductors, capacitors, magnetics, and cooling. Lower loss, faster switching semiconductors offer the potential to reduce material needs for magnetics and cooling, and sometimes capacitor as well, depending on circuit funciton. I therefore see improving performance and driving down cost of power semiconductors as the most critical challenge. This includes the packaging of these parts, which already limits the ability to fully take advantage of existing SiC devices, particularly at higher current levels.
Improvement in "Design" of a System/Sub-system is the only answer to reducing costs in Power Electronics. To give a mechanical analogy- If more number of moving parts are present in a mechanical system, the cost goes up..... if more number of switching devices are present, the cost is up !.... so.... optimization after design and also "design optimization" should be considered together... The philosophy of "Research" does not consider cost as a key parameter.... but if one wants to research on cost optimization itself .... then the story is different... !!!.... Designing for a targeted application perhaps another point to be considered... one need not produce a device that has 10 capabilities out of which 4 are hardly used..!
Adding to the colleagues above,
The major issues in the high cost of power devices are:
They need high quality starting material to withstand high voltage. As the voltage increases the purity of the material and its thickness must increase
They need high quality control and intensive testing during and after the manufacturing, which increase the production cost.
They need metallization with high cost metal such as silver and gold thick layers to withstand high current
They need special edge treatment to prevent the edge breakdown.
The most important cost tile is the mechanical encapsulation for every discrete device alone.
The massive heat sinking for forced cooling or natural cooling.
The number of devices from certain type is limited so limited mass production.
Best wishes
Very good answers. I think the main problem is the materials that still have a high cost and the manufacturing process of some components. Well, with the evolution of technology and research this scenario may change.
Best wishes
Heat generation / emission / thermal stability with reduced size of component
With modern day to day development in semiconductor technology, to reduce rejection, and cut down production cost is the challenge and to remained up to date with the material and process with development, for quality engineer....
Reducing energy increases our energy security, and reduces the pollution that is emitted from non-renewable sources of energy. If you are planning to install a small renewable energy system to make your own electricity, such as a solar electric system or small wind turbine, reducing your electricity loads is the first step—saving you money by allowing you to purchase a smaller system . Appliances and electronics -- Purchase energy-efficient products and operate them efficiently. Use an advanced power strip to reduce "vampire loads"--electricity that is wasted when electronics are not in use.
Wide band gap power devices: higher breakdown voltages , allowing higher doping and less chip size hence lower on-resistance, higher thermal conductivity, operate upto 600 °C hence more current, excellent reverse recovery characteristics hence less EMI.
Can I ask, I've read conflicting issues in papers. Some claim that due to no Qrr (reverse recovery charge) EMI is reduced and therefore is not presented major design concern. Yet in other papers due to the high switching frequency EMI is presented as a real challenge.
If any ones got any thoughts??
Superior rectifier characteristics reduce excitation of parasitic tank circuits, which is a major source of EMI, but by no means does this eliminate EMI concerns, as you still have parasitic capacitances to contend with. Edge rates are quite a bit higher, and we generally want to switch several times faster than with IGBTs to reduce cost, loss, and size of magnetic components. Also, most SiC parts are sold in the same, high inductance packages as much slower IGBTs. If you look at emissions of an IGBT power stage in time domain, the turn on interval when commutating current from a rectifier will be greater than at turn off, but turn off is nowhere near negligible. I think the better rectifiers make higher speed switching practical, but I would not expect there to be any less effort needed for EMI mitigation.
so when your talking about "better rectifier or superior rectifier characteristics " is it implying just having more favourable locations of switches on the board compared to other passive elements and other switches to reduce the effect of EMI?
By "better rectifier or superior rectifier characteristics ", I'm referring SiC's minimization/elimination of the snap off characteristic of silicon rectifiers. In hard-switched converters, this almost always is the most significant source of EMI. However, it's not the only source. Small loops with rapidly changing current are unavoidable. Utilizing a device that can switch say 5 times faster while not making the loops any smaller (forced by using the same device package), is going to result in increased EMI from that source. Similarly, common-mode EMI currents developed though capacitive coupling of devices to grounded heatsinks is worse with faster devices.
The answers provided to the question further shows that power electronics involves several aspects. It is multidisciplinary. Therefore, we need to act in several fields to deliver devices at lower cost.
Please see the following link
https://www.pes-publications.ee.ethz.ch/uploads/tx_ethpublications/CIPS_2014_Kolar_Challenges_Power_Electronics_Video.pdf
Best Regards João Lucas de Souza Silva
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