Power Electronics for Improved Grid Control, Resilience, and Reliability

Olga Spahn (ARPA-E Program Director)    

Bio: Dr. Olga Spahn currently serves as a Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Her focus at ARPA-E is on grid resiliency, power management and distribution, aviation and instrumentation for harsh environments leveraging optical and semiconductor device technologies.

Before joining ARPA-E, Dr. Spahn managed Advanced and Exploratory Systems at Sandia National Laboratories where she oversaw new system development and technology maturation activities for Nuclear Deterrence applications. Prior to that, she managed the Semiconductor Material and Device Sciences department where she focused on advancement of wide- and ultrawide- bandgap semiconductor devices and applications, which earned an R&D 100 Award. Her experience as a principal investigator spans technology development for nuclear non-proliferation, photonics and optoelectronics, optical MEMS, and laser material processing.

Dr. Spahn holds her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley. She has published more than 90 publications, holds 3 patents, and is a co-author of several book chapters.

Abstract

The electrical grid is being transformed by an increasing share of renewable energy sources and growth of electrical loads due to decarbonization needs. This drives the need for better control, performance and expansion of the grid. Next generation power electronics with improved power handling and dynamic performance are required to support these advancements. Our most recent program, Unlocking Lasting Transformative Resiliency Advances by Faster Actuation of power Semiconductor Technologies (ULTRAFAST) seeks to advance the performance limits of silicon, wide bandgap, and ultrawide bandgap semiconductor devices and significantly improve their actuation methods to support a more capable, resilient, and reliable future grid. ARPA‑E has a long history of power electronics programs that support mission goals to improve resilience, reliability, and security of energy infrastructure; improve energy efficiency; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; reduce reliance on energy imports; and maintain U.S. leadership in energy technologies.

Manish Dalal

Title: Electrification in Aerospace – Trends, Challenges and Opportunities

Bio: Manish is Vice President for Electrical Power Systems for GE Aerospace Electrical Power business in US and UK. In this role Manish leads the advanced technology team, chief engineers’ office, growth pursuits, technology and product roadmaps, systems integration capability and state-of-art power systems integration lab “EPISCenter” located in Dayton, OH. Manish has 30 years of experience in aerospace electrical power domain and expertise in areas of power electronics, controls, electric machine, power systems architecture, hybrid electric systems and integration. Manish has Master of Science degree in electrical engineering and MBA degree in Marketing.

Abstract

Electrification in aerospace has been gaining momentum for more than a decade starting with more electric aircraft, moving from pneumatic and hydraulic system to electric system and most recently with hybrid electric or all electric propulsion. The benefits and motivation for the aerospace electrification ranges from economical, environmental, performance and bringing new capabilities that would not be possible with conventional gas turbine propulsion alone such as VTOL or distributed propulsion without significant weight penalty. The discussion will be focused on trends, challenges and opportunities that come with electrification in aerospace.

 Driving the industry trends towards integrated GaN modules

Natham Schemm

Bio Nathan Schemm is the design manager for TI’s integrated high voltage GaN product line. He holds a Ph.D in electrical engineering from University of Nebraska-Lincoln and has been working at TI for 14 years. He is a founding member of TI’s GaN product line where he has been an industry pioneer in integrated GaN products over multiple product generations. He has designed multiple industry-first integrated GaN reporting and protection features such as GaN die temperature sensing and reporting, zero-voltage detection, and zero-current detection.

He is an industry expert, and has presented multiple papers at IEEE conferences including receiving a best paper award. He has also written many highly-rated whitepapers (available on TI.com), and presented at numerous TI conferences on all aspects of driving GaN from thermal design to gate driver parasitic inductances. He holds 8 patents with 9 more pending.

Abstract

GaN enables higher switching frequency, lower losses, and smaller power supplies.  This is accompanied, however, by a more challenging gate driver design. In recent years, the industry has been moving towards integrating the gate driver which can make using GaN simpler, lower loss, and provide valuable additional features. This presentation will focus on the challenges of driving GaN and how to solve them, as well as showing the benefits and limitations of advanced features such as current sensing, over-current protection, de-sat detection, temperature reporting, thermal shut down, and zero-voltage and zero-current detection that integration can provide.

Progress in β-Ga₂O₃ Materials, Physical Properties, and Device Physics for High Voltage Power Electronics

James S. Speck

Materials Department

University of California Santa Barbara

Abstract

β-Ga₂O₃ is the one of the very few wide bandgap or ultrawide bandgap semiconductors that can be grown directly from the melt (something not offered by SiC, GaN, AlN, or diamond). The system offers easy of doping via group IV donors on the Ga sites. Acceptor doping for semi-insulating behavior can be realized via Mg, Fe, or N doping. Epitaxial growth can be realized by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). In the highest quality MOCVD growth, controlled donor doping in the low to mid 10¹⁵ cm^-3 has been demonstrated by several groups with compensating acceptor concentration as low as ~10¹⁴ cm^-3. Outstanding Schottky and ohmic contacts have been demonstrated. The system offers wet etching via hot phosphoric acid. In this talk we survey the materials progress for vertical diodes and transistors with 10 kV blocking voltage. The primary support for this work has been the AFOSR GAME MURI.

Bio: James S. Speck is a Distinguished Professor in the Materials Department at the University of California Santa Barbara. He received as Bachelors of Science and Metallurgical Engineering in 1983 and his S.M. and Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985 and 1989, respectively. He joined UCSB in 1990 as an Asst. Professor. Speck’s early work focused on epitaxial oxide films on semiconductors, ferroelectric thin films, and strain relaxation in highly misfitting epitaxial systems. He has worked extensively on the materials science of GaN and related alloys. Major aspects of his work on nitrides include elucidating basic growth modes and defect generation, the development of MBE growth of GaN, and the development of nonpolar and semipolar GaN, revealing the nonradiative processes in GaN LEDs, and a large body of early work on β-Ga₂O₃. He was the recipient of the Quantum Device Award from the International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors and the IEEE Photonics Society – Aron Kressel Award and the James S. Award from the North America Conference on Molecular Beam Epitaxy. He is an inaugural Fellow of the Materials Research Society, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

WBG-Based Traction Drives for Passenger and Commercial Electric Vehicles – NEXT-DRIVE

Burak Ozpineci

Bio: Burak Ozpineci earned his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Orta Dogu Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1994. He then completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Since 2001, he has been with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he began as a student and has held positions as a researcher, founding group leader of the Power and Energy Systems Group, group leader of the Power Electronics and Electric Machinery Group. He currently serves as a Corporate Fellow and the Section Head of the Vehicle and Mobility Systems Research Section. Additionally, he has a joint faculty appointment with The University of Tennessee. Dr. Ozpineci is a Fellow of IEEE.

For over 20 years, ORNL has been researching wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor applications in transportation, primarily focusing on electric traction drive systems and both wired and wireless charging technologies. Recent work has advanced integrated power modules as part of the Electric Drive Technologies Consortium, exploring innovative substrate technologies and their potential in power modules. By integrating substrates with heat sinks optimized using genetic algorithms, the power density of traction inverters has increased more than eightfold since 2015. While much of ORNL’s efforts have historically centered on passenger vehicles, the NEXT-DRIVE project marks a shift toward commercial vehicle applications. This project aims to enhance asset utilization, efficiency, and power density while reducing costs, leveraging high-fidelity modeling and artificial intelligence. This presentation will discuss the challenges of applying WBG technology to electric traction drives and charging in both passenger and commercial vehicles, as well as key areas for future research to address these challenges.

Towards SiC 2.0 – SiC is already here

Shiori Idaka

Bio: Shiori Idaka joined Mitsubishi Electric’s Advanced Technology R&D Centre in 2002. There, she was involved in the development of various semiconductor packages, including LSIs, MEMS sensors, high-frequency and optical devices, power devices. In December 2016, she moved to the German branch of Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. and launched the European Research Cooperation Centre in 2017, where she is responsible for the coordinating of research and development projects on power electronics. She is also a member of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Nagoya University since 2014.

Abstract

It has been about 15 years since SiC module products were introduced to the world and about 10 years since the mass production of MOSFETs products. Based on field experience, expectations for the potential application of SiC modules are increasing. At the same time, the unique behaviour of SiC has been highlighted and development has been pushed forward to overcome their particularities. Thanks to these efforts, SiC module has reached the stage where it can be used. Here we will share some of the recent technological developments that have made “SiC available”.

Title: “Will GaN Replace SiC Above a Kilovolt?”

David Chen

Abstract: “Initially adopted in the rapid charging market for high-efficiency adapters, GaN-based switchers are breaking out now to more applications. GaN, unlike silicon, doesn’t suffer so much from switching-loss penalties when moving to higher voltages. Efficiency and excellent robustness make them ideal for HV automotive, industrial and appliance products making the shift-to-green. Voltage limits are the next hurdle to overcome as we all invent new ways for GaN to disrupt traditional markets. Remaining questions are how high GaN can go in voltage and how competitive it can be versus SiC in HV applications.”

Bio: “Mr. David Chen serves as Sr. Director of Applications Engineering for Power Integrations, which he joined in 2015. He leads a power electronics team of nearly a hundred engineers across three laboratories worldwide.

As an energy efficiency advocate from the power semiconductor industry, David loves the interplay between technologies and regulations to better the world. Contributing actively as an industry stakeholder in workgroups, David collaborates with standards bodies on energy efficiency, safety, and compliance, providing technical guidance on standards and regulations from the California Energy Commission, U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency (ENERGY STAR®), European Commission (energy label and ecodesign), and China Quality Certification Center.

For five years, David has served as co-chair for the Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) Energy Management Committee and provides support for the PSMA Safety and Compliance Committee. In 2024, he also began his term as Vice President for the PSMA. He is a member of the International Energy Agency 4E Electronic Devices and Networks Annex and Power Electronic Conversion and Technology Annex, the IEC TC47/SC47E committee for semiconductor devices and TC59/MT9 committee for standby power measurement, and JEDEC’s JC-70 Wide Bandgap Power Electronic Conversion Semiconductors Committee.

With thirty years of experience in power system design and applications, David has held senior management positions at both publicly traded and privately held companies, including Volterra (acquired by Maxim), Akros Silicon, and Jade Sky Technologies, an LED driver start-up which he co-founded.  David received both his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and is the author of two patents.”

Updated Analysis of Vertical GaN Power Device Technology

Bob Kaplar and Andrew Binder, Sandia National Laboratories

Abstract: Vertical GaN power devices present an alternative device topology compared to the much more established lateral GaN HEMT structure. Indeed, a cross-section of a vertical GaN device superficially resembles that of a Si or SiC power device and is similarly fabricated on a native substrate. This talk will present the state of vertical GaN power device technology as we best understand it today, and will compare this to other WBG device technologies and will extrapolate to plausible future scenarios. Historically, predications of vertical GaN device performance have been based largely on the unipolar figure of merit, which in turn was based on the best available knowledge of the breakdown electric field of a GaN drift region. However, recent experimental measurements of the GaN impact ionization coefficients have revised this view, and further, the drift region is just one part of the device and may not dominate its performance especially for lower voltage classes. For example, recent success in the development of high-k gate dielectrics have modified the value proposition for vertical GaN MOSFETs relative to other technologies. However, the specifics of the device architecture (e.g. TMOS vs. DMOS) as well as the maturity of the manufacturing process (e.g. cell pitch) significantly impact the analysis. The prospects for vertical GaN MOSFETs will be discussed compared to present and expected future SiC MOSFETs. Additionally, GaN HEMTs are expanding beyond the 650 V node with 1200 V devices demonstrated, and such devices may also make effective use of multiple heterostructure-based channels, and are another device class that must be considered when evaluating the merits of vertical GaN. Finally, some past and present commercial efforts to develop vertical GaN will be reviewed in an effort to provide perspective on this analysis.

Bio:

This keynote talk will be presented by Bob Kaplar, who is the Manager of the Semiconductor Material and Device Sciences Department at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. His group’s research over the last decade has focused primarily on WBG/UWBG power electronics. He is a co-author on numerous journal articles, conference presentations, and other documents in this field, including many publications on vertical GaN devices. He received a B.S. degree in Physics from Case Western Reserve University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Ohio State University.

Substantial content for this keynote talk will be contributed by Andrew Binder, who is a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. His research is focused on the development of kilovolt-class power semiconductor devices. At Sandia, Andrew leads a multidisciplinary team developing WBG and UWBG devices, and he is a co-author on numerous journal articles and conference presentations covering key developments in vertical GaN. He received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Arkansas and University of Central Florida.