CIRCUITS Highlights

Alaska is an energy powerhouse—home to a wide variety of inspiring energy innovations. As Senator Lisa Murkowski said at the 2023 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, Alaska is the perfect testing ground for any energy technology solution under the sun. Simply put, Alaska is the perfect place for innovation.

On February 18, regional air travel company Surf Air Mobility announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire hybrid-electric aviation startup Ampaire Inc., incorporating Ampaire’s unique electric powertrain technology into their plans to make electric air travel more widely available, sustainable, and affordable. The deal, reportedly worth roughly $100 million, would see Surf Air take on complete ownership of Ampaire, including hiring their existing employees, and operating it under a new division of the company called AMP [1].

Recent advances in wide band-gap (WBG) semiconductor materials, such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) are enabling a new generation of power semiconductor devices that far exceed the performance of silicon-based devices. Past ARPA-E programs (ADEPT, Solar ADEPT, and SWITCHES) have enabled innovations throughout the power electronics value chain, especially in the area of WBG semiconductors.

ARPA-E has announced up to $30 million in funding for a new program to accelerate the development and deployment of innovative electric power converters that would save energy and give the United States a critical technological advantage in an increasingly electrified economy.

The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) today announced $30 million in funding for 21 innovative projects as part of the Creating Innovative and Reliable Circuits Using Inventive Topologies and Semiconductors (CIRCUITS) program. CIRCUITS project teams will accelerate the development and deployment of innovative electric power converters that save energy and give the United States a critical technological advantage in an increasingly electrified economy.

ARPA-E hosted a workshop entitled “Novel Power Electronic Systems Enabled by Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors” on September 13, 2016 in the Washington, D.C. area. The workshop convened leading experts in power electronics, power systems, circuit design, wide bandgap materials, semiconductor devices, packaging and module design, and end use applications to identify innovative research paths forward for the development of disruptive advanced circuit topologies that lead to higher efficiency, more reliable, reduced size and weight, and lower cost devices and/or system architectures.