IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2017 - 17

What Is the Governance of the ITRW?
The ITRW steering committee consists of representatives
from relevant societies, associations, and alliances, i.e.,
PELS, the Power Electronic Research Network, and the
Communications Workers of American, with a membership per term for three years. The chair (PELS) and
cochairs are elected and comprise the decision-making
body for ITRW, carrying two-thirds of the total votes. The
steering committee ensures that a balance exists among
members from academic, industrial, and government
backgrounds. The subcommittees and working groups
comprise internationally leading experts from both academia and industry and is the working body of ITRW. The
chair and cochairs of each subgroup are initially
appointed by the steering committee.
The industrial advisory board comprises individuals
from relevant companies that represent the complete value
chain of this industry and its global geographic distribution.
Its role is to provide input and advice to the steering committee. The chair and cochairs are elected by the board.

How Does the Itrw operate?
The ITRW aims to be a neutral forum that provides an open
platform based on the contribution of global leading experts
as volunteers. Member meetings take place twice per year,
in combination with a major conference/event to ensure
maximum participation. Other regular meetings or workshops occur outside of the major meetings. The technology
road map updates once every two years. The white paper
and strategic research agenda is defined and events organized according to need. The ITRW uses the web for information sharing and advertisement.

How Can We Establish a Framework
of Standard Metrics for the WBG?
One of the major challenges for the power electronics community in the comparison of power electronics devices and
systems is being able to have a framework of standard metrics to enable this comparison to occur. The well-known
Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors fabricated in a dense electronic circuit doubles every
two years [12]. This has been useful as a specific metric for
the silicon device community because it basically establishes a rule of thumb for the cutting edge of device technology based on dimension alone. But it has in fact led to a
number of related trends in the silicon world such as power
loss, switching speed, and complexity, and these do not
translate directly into the power electronics world and,
more specifically, WBG semiconductors such as silicon carbide (SiC) or gallium nitride (GaN). From a power electronics standpoint, a key parameter is the R ds (on) resistance,
which provides a suitable measure of the basic device performance in terms of the relationship between R ds (on) and

the breakdown voltage. When the curves for silicon (Si),
SiC, and GaN are compared, there is a fundamental measure
of the limit for each technology, as shown in Figure 3.
Useful though this metric is, it is not the complete picture. If we compare the thermal performance of Si and SiC,
for example, it is well known that SiC devices can operate
at much wider temperature ranges than can Si and, as such,
their range of operation is much wider. In addition, their ability to tolerate higher temperatures makes it less important
to ensure that the devices are maintained at a lower temperature (as would be the case for Si devices). This, in conjunction with a much lower on resistance (and consequently
lower static power loss), makes temperature an orthogonal
aspect of the metric framework potentially to be considered.
Another issue of particular relevance to the power electronics community is reliability. Some WBG devices are at a very
early stage of commercialization and thus the technology is
immature enough to leave questions unanswered regarding
reliability when deployed during a long period.
One of the particular difficulties in establishing this
framework is the wide range of application for each aspect
of these devices, for example, running at a high temperature or perhaps extensive periods of high-power operation.
Another unknown is whether we can predict the performance in a particular module, package, or system, when
those aspects may influence performance equally as much
as the device itself. For example, an SiC device may be
intrinsically robust, but the driver may not be, especially if
it is integrated using a wire-bonded package. The role of the
ITRW is to establish some of the key criteria in a framework
of metrics for WBG power semiconductors, in the context
of power electronic systems, to enable specific technical
work and standards activities to be undertaken.

What Are Examples of Typical Standards
Relevant to Power Electronics?
There are a large variety of IEEE standards for power electronics activities. IEEE Standard 1573 [4] has been developed

105

104
Ron-Area (mΩ-cm2)

techniques, and these will be developed across the working
groups where appropriate.

SiC

GaN

103
102
101
100
10-1
10-2
10-3 2
10

103
Breakdown Voltage (V)

104

FIG 3 The Rds(on) resistance versus breakdown voltage for Si,
SiC, and GaN technologies.

March 2017

z IEEE PowEr ElEctronIcs MagazInE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2017