Diamond Foundry (DF) created an electric car inverter leveraging its diamond wafer technology to enable more efficient electric cars, the company said. The power electronics unit is six times smaller than that of a Tesla 3 while delivering more power more efficiently. This new level of miniaturization is enabled through a smart design enabled by diamond wafers in composition with established silicon carbide dies.
According to DF, the design of power semiconductors is essentially driven by two factors: Thermal conductivity – the path to cool them down – and electrical conductivity – the path to carry high currents. Though the electrical path has been worked on for many years with more or less success, the thermal path has always been the main challenge. Further, power semiconductors need to be isolated from the rest of the environment because of the safety required with high voltages. Voltage isolation barriers usually demonstrate poor thermal conductivity.
Diamond wafers can now be employed using two of its extreme properties — extreme thermal performance plus extreme electrical insulation. DF said the advent of cost-efficient diamond wafers creates fundamental new design opportunities for power electronics in ways not possible before. With the benefit of these new designs being so stark, DF said it is hard to see them not becoming the standard in power electronics.
