The European Centre for Power Electronics (ECPE), based in Nuremberg, Germany, hosted its 6th ECPE User Forum on Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) power devices at the University of Warwick on Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st April 2015. The two-day event was a great success, and helped raise the profile of the School of Engineering’s capabilities in power electronics.

The workshop, entitled 'ECPE SiC & GaN User Forum - Potential of Wide Bandgap Semiconductors in Power Electronic Applications', attracted over 160 delegates from all over the world, the largest attendance for the ECPE for this type of specialist meeting, which takes place every two years.

Academic researchers from throughout Europe made up a quarter of the audience, with the majority of delegates coming from industry. There was strong participation from large Japanese companies, including Panasonic, Toyota Motor Corporation, Hitachi, Rohm Semiconductor, and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, all of whom presented their companies’ new and exciting technological advancements in power electronic devices and fuel-cell vehicle manufacturing. Representatives from several German multinational companies were also in attendance, including BMW, Infineon Technologies, Siemens, and Bosch.

The aim of the event was to enable exchange of information between experts involved in converter and device manufacturing, and to highlight research and commercial developments in power electronic systems and the use of wide bandgap semiconductors, i.e. SiC and GaN.

Professor Paul Chow from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US, an internationally renowned expert in the field, gave an excellent keynote speech on 'Comparison and Benchmark: SiC vs. GaN vs. Si in Different Applications'. Kimimori Hamada from Toyota Motor Corporation provided an insight into Toyota’s progression into fuel-cell vehicle development with his talk on 'Challenges of Applying SiC Power Semiconductors to Environmentally Friendly Vehicles'. The agenda listing all the presentations over the two days can be found on the ECPE Events page: http://www.ecpe.org/ecpe-events/archive/

At the end of day one, a newly made video on the School of Engineering’s epitaxial growth, fabrication, and packaging cleanroom capabilities was shown, and small-group tours were provided to delegates particularly interested in finding out more about these facilities.

Further information on the PEATER group is available on the School of Engineering website.