Onsemi introduces EliteSiC M4
Onsemi has introduced EliteSiC M4, its fourth-generation SiC platform built on a trench architecture and designed to set a new performance benchmark for next-generation power systems.
The platform has been designed to give customers greater design freedom to increase power density and efficiency up to 30 percent and lower losses by 35 percent, enabling more efficient, power-dense systems across EVs, AI data centre and industrial applications.
“Power requirements are rising faster than the physical infrastructure around them. The next generation of power systems will require the ability to deliver more power, more efficiently and in less space,” said Achyut Shah, group president of the Power Solutions Group at Onsemi. “With more than 16 billion miles of proven SiC operation in vehicles around the world, EliteSiC M4 is combining that foundation of reliability with the performance customers need to rethink the balance among power, efficiency, size and cost.”
The growth of AI, electrification and energy infrastructure is creating a common challenge for power-system designers – delivering significantly more power without proportional increases in size, energy losses, and cooling requirements. Onsemi says that EliteSiC M4 addresses that challenge by expanding the power and efficiency available within existing system constraints, giving customers greater flexibility to scale AI infrastructure, electric vehicles and industrial systems.
“As vehicle power levels increase, traction-inverter design becomes a tighter balancing act between efficiency, thermal performance, power density and reliability,” said Harald Hartel, VP, BU eMotor Controls at Schaeffler AG. “Higher efficiency and power density can give us greater flexibility to optimize the traction inverter for range, thermal performance and packaging, which are increasingly important as electrified powertrains become more demanding.”
New architecture
EliteSiC M4 improvements over the previous generation include a reduction of specific on-resistance (RSP) between 20 percent - 50 percent, while enabling faster switching.
The architecture is also said to improve switching figures of merit by 67 percent in hard-switching and 50 percent in soft-switching, supporting compact power-supply designs
M4 supports existing packages, including top-side-cooled surface-mount packages and high-power modules. The platform is also designed for demanding operating environments, with qualification supporting temperatures of 185°C and above, enabling use in high-voltage automotive and space applications
The EliteSiC M4 750 V bare die for automotive traction inverters is available now. Additional product offerings for a range of voltages up to 1200 V are expected to be available beginning in 2027.
