Battery & Electrification Technology - May/June 2024 - 5

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Batteries get all the attention, but power-electronics developers lean into the cost equation
as EV affordability concerns persist.
F
uture electric vehicles will be more efficient, more
powerful, and will be able to hold more energy in
their batteries than today's EVs. Those big " mores "
require countless small improvements beyond the
headline component - batteries. One of the richest
target areas is power-electronics technology
and components used throughout the EV ecosystem. A new
generation of power electronics will be found in tomorrow's EVs,
charging stations, and related infrastructure components.
Burak Ozpineci has a front-row seat to how better power
electronics revolutionize the automotive industry. Now
the Section Head of the Vehicle and Mobility
Systems Research Section at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory,
Ozpineci has seen how technologies
such as silicon insulated
gate bipolar transistors
(IGBT) were fundamental
to both the
GM EV1 and the
Toyota Prius.
" [Those vehicles]
happened because
of the silicon IGBT, "
Ozpineci told SAE
Media. " Then people
used IGBTs because
IGBTs became
a household
name for power
electronics in many
applications. Then,
in the early 2000s, we
started looking at silicon
carbide, and in the
early 2010s, everybody
started looking into silicon
carbide devices. "
Battery & Electrification Technology, May/June 2024
Tesla famously used a silicon carbide (SiC) drivetrain inverter
in the Model 3 when it came out in 2017, and Ozpineci said it's
expected in the industry that, after 2030, most EVs will use SiC
devices. So-called wide-bandgap materials, specifically SiC and
gallium nitride (GaN) offer marked efficiency improvements
compared with silicon semiconductors.
" When we first started in 2001, there were just a few devices
available, " Ozpineci said. " They were brand new, they were expensive.
But with the introduction of the silicon-carbide
MOSFET, maybe close to 10 years ago, people started looking at
those devices more seriously. " The race to improve continues.
Tesla announced in 2023 that it is developing
a SiC inverter that will use 75 percent fewer
silicon-carbide (SiC) MOSFETs.
Silicon-carbide semiconductor
produced by Bosch at its
fabrication site near Dresden,
Germany. (Image: Bosch)
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Battery & Electrification Technology - May/June 2024

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