P3EP UK Supply Chain Project

The project "Pre-packaged Power Devices for PCB Embedded Power Electronics" (P3EP) develops a UK supply chain for PCB-embedded power systems with Gallium Nitride (GaN) devices. The P3EP supply chain will allow PEMD manufacturers to build converters with the highest power densities and it will allow UK power semiconductor companies to enter these markets.

Wide bandgap power devices such as GaN offer extremely high switching speeds and the possibility to significantly reduce system size. But this can only be exploited with new packaging and module construction methods which increase thermal transfer and reduced parasitic effects. The emerging technology of embedding power devices into the PCB has proven to be the most advanced way to achieve this goal. P3EP develops the complete supply chain in the UK.

The P3EP manufacturing chain is based on GaN pre-packages. Pre-packages have major advantages over bare dies because they allow production testing, characterisation, and reliability qualification. This improves yield, cost, and time-to-market for the PEMD system. Further, pre-packages use materials with optimised compatibility with the chip and enable much-simplified embedding into the system-PCB.

The P3EP supply chain comprises:

• GaN power semiconductor supplier and Cu chip metallisation

• Production capability for GaN pre-packages. This includes pre-packages with single or multiple GaN devices as well as half-bridge arrangements with integrated driver.

• Manufacturing of power-system PCBs by embedding tested GaN pre-packages followed by traditional assembly into a full converter.

• Set up the digital toolchain for the customisation of pre-packages and embedded power sub-systems for a large variety of power electronic applications.

• Set up the supply chain for characterisation of electrical, thermal and reliability performance of device, pre-package, and embedded subsystems.

All these embedded manufacturing capabilities can be simply adapted to facilitate testing, characterisation and embedding of other power semiconductor technologies such as Silicon or Silicon Carbide.

Power systems with embedded WBG devices based on the P3EP supply chain will deliver improvements in the weight, volume, efficiency, and power density of the converter. These aspects are particularly important for automotive and more-electric aerospace applications, the early adopters of the technology. While there are world-leading electronics manufacturing capabilities in the UK, there is currently no manufacturing line for assembling embedded power electronics. Project P3EP will close this cap enabling the UK PEMD industry to deliver smaller, lighter, more reliable solutions in power electronics for a wide range of markets.