For a sustained support of research in wide energy bandgap semiconductor materials and technologies, Fraunhofer IISB in Erlangen, Germany, and LAAS - CNRS, Toulouse, France, initiated the foundation of the Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Alliance WISEA.

Including the Chair of Electron Devices of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and CEMES-CNRS, Toulouse, France, the alliance covers all aspects of research and demonstrator development and makes the respective facilities available to third parties in cooperative projects.

The further development of novel “green” energy sources like wind or solar energy parks and a significant reduction of the world-wide energy consumption are of utmost importance for the reduction of CO₂ emission. This includes the transition from conventional gasoline engines to electric or hybrid electric vehicles in automotive engineering. For allapplications involving the transport of energy from power plants to the user,power management in cars, and conversion of energy,power electronic devices play an essential role. Power devices based on materials with a wide energy bandgap such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride show the capability to overcome the material-dependent limits of power electronic devices based on silicon. Thereby, they will contribute essentially to the minimization of power dissipation.

SiC technology on the advance. Structured SiC wafer. Picture: Fraunhofer IISB.

In order to facilitate the development and take-up of this technology, and based on an existing cooperation formed within the Programme Inter Carnot Fraunhofer (PICF 2010), the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Systems and Device Technology IISB and the CNRS institute Laboratoire d'Analyse et d'Architecture des Systèmes (LAAS) together with their associates, the Chair of Electron Devices of the University Erlangen-Nuremberg (LEB) and the CNRS institute Centre d’Elaboration de Matériaux et d’Etudes Structurales (CEMES), formed the Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Alliance (WISEA). Together, the partners are able to offer a competence chain in wide bandgap semiconductor processing covering all aspects of research and demonstrator development.

WISEA has access to a 1000 m² class-10 cleanroom in Erlangen, Germany, and to a 1500 m² class-100 clean room in Toulouse, France, dedicated to micro and nanofabrication. In particular for wide bandgap semiconductor materials and devices, specialized equipment is available to cover processing from epitaxy to metallization and packaging, including the fabrication of test structures and devices. Based on its experienced staff and state-of-the-art facilities, the alliance also offers advanced electrical and physico-chemical characterization as well as simulation and modeling from atomistic processes to the device level.

The WISEA facilities are available for contract research as well as for third-party-funded collaborative projects.

WISEA acknowledges the initial support by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) of Germany and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) of France within the Programme Inter Carnot Fraunhofer (PICF 2010) project MobiSiC.