Warwick Manufacturing Group has established a compound semiconductor research area focused on silicon carbide power devices, manufacturing reliability, qualification, and industrial scale-up. Professor Peter Gammon and Dr Arne Renz have moved from the University of Warwick’s School of Engineering into WMG, strengthening its Power Electronics, Machines and Drives capability.
The researchers will develop next-generation silicon carbide devices and work with industrial partners on performance, reliability, and manufacturability. Renz’s work focuses particularly on silicon carbide interfaces with oxides and metals. Their work sits within a broader WMG programme covering power conversion, electric machines, drives, energy storage, and transport electrification.
Silicon carbide can operate at higher voltages and temperatures than conventional silicon while reducing switching losses. Those characteristics support smaller, more efficient power conversion systems for electric vehicles, renewable generation, electricity networks, aerospace, space, and data centre infrastructure.
Device performance alone, however, does not create a viable manufacturing process. Wider adoption depends on wafer quality, process yield, gate behaviour, packaging, thermal management, protection, and repeatable test evidence. A device that performs well in the laboratory still has to survive production variation and the qualification requirements imposed by customers.
WMG intends to connect academic device development with industrial manufacturing and scale-up. The new research area will work through programmes including the UKRI REWIRE Innovation and Knowledge Centre, which brings researchers and more than 30 industrial partners together around the commercial adoption of wide-bandgap power semiconductor technologies.
Warwick has also linked the move to its memorandum of understanding with Tata Power. That relationship provides a potential route into energy-system applications, although the announcement establishes research and industrialisation capability rather than a new semiconductor fabrication plant.
Professor Peter Gammon, a professor in WMG Research, said: “As silicon carbide technology matures, the challenge is increasingly about manufacturing, reliability and industrial scale-up.” He said WMG would provide an environment for translating research into technologies with economic impact.
The manufacturing challenge spans more than the semiconductor die. Silicon carbide devices need packages, interconnects, cooling, gate drivers, sensors, and protection systems capable of operating at the electrical and thermal conditions created by faster switching and higher power density. Weakness in any of those areas can limit the performance that justified selecting the material.
Qualification has consequently become a larger part of the market. Recent JEDEC guidance on silicon carbide reliability covers short-circuit evaluation and stress procedures intended to support more consistent device assessment. Standardised guidance does not replace supplier-specific evidence, but it gives manufacturers and customers a clearer basis for comparing behaviour.
WMG’s existing Power Electronics, Machines and Drives group combines design, modelling, manufacturing, and high-power testing. Its facilities support converter and electric-machine work at powers up to 500kW, allowing device research to be considered within the systems that will eventually use it rather than as an isolated component exercise.
That connection is important because silicon carbide can change the design of the surrounding converter. Higher switching frequencies can reduce the size of passive components and cooling systems, but they can also increase electromagnetic interference and place greater demands on insulation, layout, and control. The commercial case therefore depends on the complete system, not a single efficiency figure.
Industrial timing adds another constraint. Automotive, aerospace, grid, and critical-power programmes can take years to qualify, while international semiconductor capacity and device generations continue to change. Research must reach customers early enough to influence architectures, supplier choices, and validation plans before a production programme becomes fixed.
The new area also fits the UK’s attempt to build semiconductor strength around differentiated technologies rather than compete only in leading-edge digital logic. Power electronics remains closely connected to automotive manufacturing, industrial drives, energy infrastructure, aerospace, and defence, where Britain retains potential customers and systems engineering capability.
That installed industrial base does not guarantee a domestic supply chain. Wafers, fabrication, packaging, test equipment, materials, and production machinery may still come from international suppliers, leaving scale-up dependent on partnerships beyond Warwick. Research capability is valuable, but it cannot substitute for foundry access or qualified production capacity.
WMG has added expertise at the point where silicon carbide is moving from proof of performance towards proof of manufacture. The programme will be judged through qualified devices, repeatable processes, industrial partnerships, and production decisions. Lists of potential applications are plentiful; dependable manufacturing evidence remains considerably harder to obtain.
