Fall 2020: Semiconductor Power Devices

Power devices drive our society, from the power grid and renewable energy integration to hybrid and electric vehicles, trains, space exploration, and industrial and consumer electronics. This course will cover design and operating principles of semiconductor devices for discrete and integrated power electronics. Devices we will discuss include the power MOSFET, IGBT, HEMT, Schottky and PIN diodes, as well as emerging device architectures. We will study wide bandgap semiconductor materials, device fabrication and packaging required for power devices, including GaN, SiC, and Ga2O3. Students will be exposed to numerical device modeling using commercial TCAD software (Synopsys Sentaurus and Silvaco Atlas), and will do a final group presentation on a topic of their choice.