A Future Outlook of Power Devices From the Viewpoint of Power Electronics Trends
Wataru Saito
Abstract
A outlook for power devices is discussed from the perspectives of power device and power electronics application trends. The driving force of the power device business has changed from home appliances and industrial robots to electric vehicles (EV), and the most important trend has been the increase in power density in power modules by power loss reduction, high-temperature operation, and thermal resistance reduction. In the future, it can be expected that inverter-based resources and power supply integrated circuits (ICs) will be new driving forces for green transformation (GX) and digital transformation (DX). To continue the increasing power density trend of power modules, wide bandgap power devices are attractive. However, economic parameters, such as “cost/power,” must be improved for wide installation in power grids with large volumes. In addition, it can be expected that hetero integration into power modules and GaN power ICs will be a new demand.