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Silicon carbide brings well known highly desirable physical and electrical properties to components for power conversion applications. While many esoteric low volume applications are being explored in the aerospace and specialized industries, more widespread commercial success will be dependent on several factors, including the development of devices ideally suited for targeted high volume applications for which existing semiconductor solutions fall short of the achievement of system performance targets. The challenge in accomplishing this is addressing both the immediate application technical issues, addressing commercial cost viability, and also surmounting market perceptions regarding the suitability of high voltage semiconductors in high reliability applications as diverse as computing server and telecom power supplies, or automotive hybrid vehicle power conversion. Clear cut advantages are achieved with SiC for power conversion in the 400-600V area, resulting in the ability to drastically scale power density and thermal density in "consumer" grade systems. Details of the component requirements and the affect on system configuration and performance will be discussed for power conversion applications in both offline AC power and automotive applications, and industry inputs regarding component reliability and de-rating will be presented.
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Janie Hancock (2006) studied this question.