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Continental spinout backs Rohm for volume SiC production

Continental spinout backs Rohm for volume SiC production

Business news |
By Nick Flaherty






Vitesco Technologies, the Regensburg-based powertrain spin out of automotive tier one suppplier Continental, will use custom silicon carbide SiC devices in volume production.

The development deal for the devices has already started. Vitesco Technologies is already developing and testing the technology in an 800V inverter design to confirm the efficiency boost that will give electric vehicles longer range from the same battery pack. The technology is also a key enabler for super-fast charging technology that uses 800V.

“Energy efficiency is of paramount importance in an electric vehicle. As the traction battery is the only source of energy in the vehicle, any losses caused by power conversion need to be minimized. We are therefore developing a SiC option within our modular power electronics system,” said Thomas Stierle, Executive Vice President of the Electrification Technology business unit at Vitesco Technologies. “To get the maximum efficiency out of the power electronics and the e-motor we will use SiC power devices from our preferred partner. ROHM has convinced us of its products.”

“We are looking forward to the future cooperation with Vitesco Technologies”, says Dr. Kazuhide Ino, Corporate Officer, Director of Power Device business unit at Rohm in Japan. “We are the leading company in SiC power semiconductors and have achieved a significant technological lead in this field along with the provision of power solutions combined with gate driver ICs. Together with Vitesco Technologies we want to further improve the energy efficiency of the electronic system in EVs to use the full potential of the SiC technology for a sustainable mobility.”

Rohm and Vitesco Technologies will work on optimising the technology for high volume manufacturing for the inverter design with production in 2025.

“The SiC option is a very promising future part of our modular power electronics system comprising of software, power output stage, and switching strategy,” said Dr Gerd Rösel, head of Innovation in the Electrification Technology business unit at Vitesco Technologies. “We will work with Rohm on an 800V SiC inverter solution as well as on a 400V SiC inverter solution.” Vitesco Technology plans the start of production of the first SiC inverter as of 2025, when the demand for SiC solutions is expected to rise significantly. “In other words, our partnership and development are perfectly on time,” said Rösel.

Rohm has two sites at Nuremberg for Rohm Semiconductor Group and SiCrystal, not far from Vitesco Technologies’ headquarters at Regensburg.

www.vitesco-technologies.com

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