Demands of applications like electric vehicles, renewable energy and rail transport have triggered a burst of innovation in IGBT modules and their packaging Fuji Electric, Hitachi, Infineon, Mitsubishi Electric and Semikron tell Power Dev’.

Many modern industries using IGBT modules want to smash their power, reliability, size and cost limits. Current chip designs, for wide bandgap devices as well as silicon IGBTs, promise to provide the capabilities they demand. But to capitalise on them, in electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EV/HEV) and renewable energy industries, among others, the packaging these chips are integrated into has a critical part to play.

Thanks to this clamor, and perhaps the millions of EV/HEVs expected to be sold in coming years, more companies want to produce power modules, noted Yutaka Yoshida, chief expert, power semiconductors, at Fuji Electric headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. There have been a limited number of players in IGBT power module manufacturing because total sales are not so large, he said. “A few companies have enjoyed this niche market, however we speculate that the recent rapid growth of power electronics market is attracting new players.”

To read the complete article, please click here.