The “first and euRopEAn siC eigTh Inches pilOt line” REACTION project as a Driver for key European SiC Technologies focused on Power Electronics Development

T. Bieniek, G. Janczyk, A. Sitnik, A. Messina
Instytut Technologii Elektronowej,
Poland

Keywords: REACTION EU porject, SiC, silicon carbide, SiC 8", power electronics

Summary:

Electronic Components and Systems (ECS) technology is a high-growth area of Industry. The ECS market is growing faster worldwide than any other the industry in average. Competitiveness of key European industrial domains heavily depends on the availability of leading edge ECS technologies such as the SiC one in the field of compound power electronic semiconductors. Above goals and objectives to be achieved require extended collaboration across the innovation and value chains between research institutes, academia, SMEs, large companies and R&D&I actors from substrate, through equipment to microchip suppliers and design tools and architecture developers and innovators. For above mentioned reasons the European project REACTION (first and euRopEAn siC eigTh Inches pilOt liNe) was launched to push throughout the new and European first 200mm SiC Pilot Line in the world. This project takes profits of ECSEL IA call together with European Public Authorities funding Alliance in a single European Strategy for ECS. The aim is to realize the first worldwide 8 inches wafer Pilot Line in SiC. The overarching goal of the Reaction project joining 27 partners from 15 countries - including two partners from Poland: Instytut Technologii Elektronowej and DACPOL - is to ensure Europe’s key position in advanced SiC technology. The ambition is also to enable the European industry systems by setting up a fully operational fab facility at 200mm in Europe, focusing on leading edge SiC technology. Technology progress from 4” or 6” substrates only to 8” implementation is the REACTION target along with numerous demonstration proofs within the project. Polish partners of the REACTION project: the ITE (Research) and Dacpol (SME) with project coordinator STMicroelectronics and some other project partners are responsible for one of the project demonstrator: the battery charging module focused on automotive & smart mobility application markets. The main task covers development, low volume fabrication, assembly and testing of the driving modules for battery charging station. Over 1 million electric vehicles is expected in Poland before 2025. Booming market of electric vehicles results that minimum infrastructure necessary to be developed exceeds 5 million charging points. It is area under very excessive developments, very high grow rate is expected in 2025 perspective and beyond. This paper will focus on power electronics hardware and software solutions development of driver (controller and power elements) for battery charging modules. Available solutions will be discussed in details along with hardware implementation scenarios. Preliminary applications and electro-mechanical parameters will be presented and discussed.