SWITCHES

Abstract: Wide bandgap power semiconductor devices offer enormous energy efficiency gains in a wide range of potential applications. However, today, they remain too costly relative to Si devices to gain ubiquitous adoption in many higher power applications. In 2014, ARPA-E launched a new research program entitled SWITCHES, that seeks to enable the development of high voltage (1200 V+), high current (100 A) single die power semiconductor devices that, upon ultimately reaching scale, have the potential to reach functional cost parity ($/A) with silicon power transistors while also offering breakthrough relative circuit performance (low losses, high switching frequencies, and high temperature operation).

ARPA-E Deputy Director Cheryl Martin today announced $27 million in funding from the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) for 14 projects aimed at developing next-generation power conversion devices that could dramatically transform how power is controlled and converted throughout the grid. The projects selected today under ARPA-E’s SWITCHES program, short for “Strategies for Wide-Bandgap, Inexpensive Transistors for Controlling High-Efficiency Systems,” aim to find innovative ways to lower the cost and improve the efficiency of power electronics.

Dr. Timothy Heidel discusses the SWITCHES program and its mission to develop next-generation power switching devices that could dramatically improve energy efficiency across a wide range of applications.