IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2020 - 14

Happenings

by Ashok Bindra

JEDEC JC-70 Issues Guidelines for
Testing and Evaluating WBG Devices

or accelerating the adoption
of wide bandgap (WBG) power
devices in power electronics
systems, open standards are needed. Besides enabling market growth,
standards ramp maturity of the
industry and accelerate industrywide adoption by creating consistency across the supplier base,
which is important to the users. In
addition, it addresses specific market needs.
Toward that goal, a new JEDEC
committee JC-70 was created in 2017
with Dr. Stephanie Watts Butler, technology innovation architect in GaN
and high-voltage power at Texas Instruments, as the Chair of JC-70 WBG
committee. The JC-70 comprises twosub-committees, JC-70.1 for gallium
nitride (GaN) power transistors and
JC-70.2 for silicon carbide (SiC)
power devices. While Tim McDonald
of Infineon is the chair of subcommittee JC-70.1 with vice chair Kurt Smith
of VisIC, Dr. Jeffrey Casady of Wolfspeed is the chair of subcommittee
JC-70.2 with vice chair Dr. Peter
Friedrichs, senior director SiC at Infineon Technologies. Each subcommittee has task groups that consist of
industry experts, as well as technical
experts from universities and nationals laboratories.
GaN subcommittee JC-70.1 published its first guideline JEP173 in
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPEL.2020.3011094
Date of current version: 15 September 2020

IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

JC-70 Structure:
Leadership
JC-70 Wide Bandgap
Power Electronic
Conversion
Semiconductors

Chair:
Dr. Stephanie Watts Butler
(Texas Instruments)
Vice-Chair:
Dr. Tim McDonald (Infineon)

JC-70.1 Subcommittee
GaN Power Electronic Conversion
Semiconductor Standards

JC-70.2 Subcommittee
SiC Power Electronic Conversion
Semiconductor Standards

Chair:
Dr. Tim McDonald (Infineon)

Chair:
Dr. Jeffrey Casady
(Wolfspeed, a Cree Company)

Vice-Chair:
Dr. Kurt Smith (VisiC)

Vice-Chair:
Dr. Peter Friedrichs (Infineon)

FIG 1 JEDEC JC-70 comprises two subcommittees, JC-70.1 for GaN power transistors
and JC-70.2 for SiC power devices. (Source: JEDEC; used with permission).

early 2019. It provides dynamic onresistance test method guidelines for
GaN high electron mobility transistor
(HEMT) based power conversion
devices. These guidelines include:
■ address key need of user community-method for measurement of
drain-to-source resistance in the
on-state (R DS(on)) encompassing
dynamic effects.
■ dynamic effects are characteristic
of GaN power FETs: the value of
the resulting measured (R DS(on)) is
method dependent.
■ help accelerate industry-wide adoption of GaN by ensuring consistency across the supplier base.

z September 2020

This year JEDEC JC-70.1 subcommittee announced the publication of
JEP180, a guideline for switching reliability evaluation procedures for GaN
power devices. It was developed over
a period of more than two years by a
team of industry experts from leading GaN power device manufacturers. According to JC-70 committee,
JEP180 is intended for use by manufacturers of GaN power transistors
and power conversion equipment. For
the first time since the introduction
of GaN power transistors, JEP180
will enable manufacturers to evaluate switching reliability of GaN
power transistors and to assure their

IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2020