YESvGaN-TRANSFORM-PowerElec PhD summer school GaN and SiC power electronics: From basics to application
(August 28-30, 2023)

 

The YESvGaN-TRANSFORM-PowerElec PhD summer school was a great success! Interesting and inspiring talks, enthusiastic participants and an amazing atmosphere lasting until late in the evening. Thank you to everyone that was involved to make this event possible, educational and enjoyable.

Most lectures of the summer school are available online here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3f5ksPzdcOqrkCsiLj96NVA1FJabTW4A

Summary

A greener future requires minimizing the waste of energy. Electric power needs to be converted (multiple times) during its way from primary energy supply to the electronic devices used in our daily lives e.g. from the 220V AC mains to a 12V DC end-user appliance. Key to reducing the energy consumption is thus to maximize the efficiency in power conversion. This efficiency can be drastically improved by replacing power transistors that are currently based on silicon by wide band gap (WBG) semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). Despite an accelerating adoption of GaN and SiC during the last years for consumer power supplies and automotive inverters, respectively, silicon-based technology is still largely dominating. To unlock the full potential of WBG based devices, we need to study and understand all the different aspects of the power devices, from growing the raw material to packaging and a demonstration of its potential in a final device.

This PhD summer school focusses on the production and development of GaN and SiC wide band gap power transistor devices. The attendees will get a full overview, from growing the raw wide-bandgap materials until packaging for the final application:

  1. How wide band gap semiconductors differ from conventional Si semiconductor technology and the physical properties of each material.
  2. How to implement the semiconductor material in the device via epitaxial film growth and how to characterize the materials to correlate the processing details to the final properties of the device.
  3. How reliable the performance of the final devices is and how to control and improve the reliability.
  4. How to produce the power devices on large scale and what the future will bring.

Each aspect is thoroughly discussed during a lecture given by invited experts from academia and industry which are working at the forefront of this field.

This summer school is co-organized by the ESCEL JU funded YESvGaN project (grant no 101007229), KDT JU funded TRANSFORM project (grant no 101007237) and the EMPIR funded PowerElec project (grant no 20IND09). The summer school is supported by the Flemish Government and the doctoral schools of Ghent University.

Time Schedule

Monday, August 28th 

9:00

Welcome words

C. Detavernier (UGent)

9:15

Wide band gap power transistors for electrified mobility

K. Heyers (Bosch)

10:15

Coffee

 

10:30

Fundamentals of lateral and vertical power devices

F. Medjdoub (ULille, CNRS)

11:30

SiC crystal growth and defects

E. Carria (STMicroelectronics)

12:30

Lunch break

 

14:30

Epitaxial growth of GaN and SiC

B. Schineller (AIXTRON SE)

16:00

Poster presentations by participating PhD students

 


Tuesday, August 29th 

9:00

GaN based vertical power devices: review and process development

E. Brusaterra (FBH)

9:50

Power transistor manufacturing flow: Starting with Si moving into GaN and SiC

S. Coffa (STMicroelectronics)

10:45

Coffee

 

11:00

The challenges of making GaN crystals and wafers and characterization of device relevant structural issues

E. Meissner (Fraunhofer IISB)

12:00

Advances in metrology for wide bandgap semiconductors

Sebastian Wood (NPL)

12:30

Lunch break

 

14:30

Soitec SmartCut for SiC engineering substrate: SmartSiC(TM)

W. Schwarzenbach (Soitec)

15:15

Vertical GaN on foreign substrates – The YESvGaN approach

C. Huber (Bosch)

16:00

Excursion: Get to know Ghent and your peers

 

18:30

UGent takes you to dinner at Multatuli

 


Wednesday, August 30th 

9:00

Reliability and stability of SiC devices

J. Franke (TUC Germany)

9:30

Reliability and stability of SiC devices:
New dynamic robustness tests (DRB and DH3TRB)

T. Reimann (ISLE)

10:00

Reliability and stability of GaN devices

N. Zagni (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)

10:45

Coffee

 

11:00

Industrialization, standardization and packaging

M. Rittner (Bosch)

12:30

Lunch break

 

14:30

SiC and GaN for Power Electronics: Two Markets Driven by Different Growth Engines

T. Ayari (Yole Group)

16:00

Closing words

C. Detavernier (UGent)

Registration

Participation is free of charge. Registration includes participation to the lectures, coffee and optional the excursion and dinner offered by UGent. Only a limited number of participants can attend. Interested participants are advised to register in your earliest convenience.

The maximum number of registrations for the summer school have been reached.

 

Location

The summer school will take place in the August Vermeylen room at:

Het Pand, Ghent University
Onderbergen 1
9000 Ghent, Belgium

Certificate

The summer school is recognized as a specialist course from the Doctoral Schools of Ghent University. After successful participation, the Doctoral Schools will add this course to your curriculum. Keep in mind that this takes up to one to two months after completion of the course.

It is your responsibility to verify the validity of the summer school for credits at the Doctoral Schools of your home university. Ideally you share the necessary requirements with the organizer before applying.

Contact

Department of Solid State Sciences, Ghent University
Krijgslaan 281 - Building S1
9000 Gent, Belgium

E-Mail: Sofie.Vandenbroucke@UGent.be

Acknowledgement

This summer school has been made possible through the support of the Flemish Government and the Doctoral Schools of Ghent University.

The YESvGaN project has received funding by the ECSEL JU under Grant Agreement No 101007229. The TRANSFORM project has received funding by KDT JU under Grant Agreement No 101007237. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Italy. The PowerElec project has received funding by the EMPIR initiative (grant no 20IND09). The EMPIR initiative is co-funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the EMPIR Participating States.

How to get to Ghent easily

By airplane

The closest major airport to Ghent is Brussels National Airport (BRU), a.k.a. Zaventem, 67 kilometers from Ghent. There are direct flights to all major European cities several times per day. The most convenient way to get from Brussels National Airport to Ghent is by train. The airport train station is located on level -1 of the terminal. The departure station is Brussels Airport-Zaventem, the arrival station is Gent-Sint-Pieters (Gand-Saint-Pierre in French).

Tickets can be bought in the baggage reclaim area and in the train station for about 17.80 euros per person for a one-way ticket. There are 3 trains per hour to Ghent, 1 of which is a direct fast train (54 min with destination ‘Brussel & Knokke’), 1 of which is a slow direct train (1 h 22 min with destination ‘Brussel & Gent-Sint-Pieters’), and 1 of which requires a connection in Brussels-South (Brussel-Zuid in Dutch or Bruxelles-Midi in French) (about 1 h, first train with destination ‘Brussel & Bergen’ and second train with destination ‘Gent-Sint-Pieters & Oostende’).

By public transport

Traveling to Ghent:

The destination station is called Gent Sint-Pieters (or Gand-Saint-Pierre in French). An online route planner can be found here.

From station Gent Sint-Pieters:

Tram 1 (every 7 minutes, stop is at front entrance of the station 100 m to the left). Direction city center: ‘Wondelgem’ or ‘Evergem’. Exit at Korenmarkt. Google might give you the option to take Tram 2 towards the city center, but unfortunately Tram 2 is currently not operational due to traffic works. Alternatively, a 2.5 km walk brings you from the Sint-Pieters train station to Het Pand. Tram and bus tickets can be purchased at a 'De Lijn' booth near the train station, on the ‘De Lijn’ app or online. More info on https://www.delijn.be/en/.

Travelling within Ghent to Het Pand:

Het Pand is situated at Onderbergen 1, 9000 Gent in the middle of the city center. Everything in the city center can easily be reached by foot. If you are staying outside of the city center: take the tram or bus from ‘De Lijn’ towards the Korenmarkt. From there it is a 450 m walk.

By Car

Important notice on GPS-usage: The city of Ghent has severely changed the traffic routes for cars in 2017. If your GPS has not been updated since then, please do not use it in the city.

Follow the parking signage to parking P7 Sint-Michiels. The parking is located at 50 meters from Het Pand (ca. € 26/24h). Take the exit Onderbergen and you come out in the Wilderoosstraat, opposite Het Pand.

An alternative parking is P8 Ramen (ca. € 15/24h). From here it's about 5 minutes by foot to Het Pand.

Youth hostel

Hostel De Draecke
for €30,65/night (< 30 years)
Sint-Widostraat 11
9000 Gent
Link

Hostel Uppelink
for ~ €30/night
Sint-Michielsplein 21
9000 Gent
Link

Hotel

NH Gent Belfort
from ~ €126/night
Hoogpoort 63
9000 Gent
Link

Novotel Gent Centrum
from ~ €124/night
Hoogpoort 52
9000 Gent
Link

Hotel Monasterium PoortAckere
from ~ €142/night
Oude Houtlei 56
9000 Gent
Link/

 

Ibis Gent Centrum St. Baafs Kathedraal
from ~ €95/night
Limburgstraat 2
9000 GENT
Link

Ibis Gent Centrum Opera
from ~ €76/night
Nederkouter 24
9000 GENT
Link