ONSEMI AND VW GROUP COLLABORATE ON SILICON CARBIDE TECHNOLOGY FOR NEXT-GENERATION ELECTRIC VEHICLES

onsemi, a leader in intelligent power and sensing technologies, announced that it signed a strategic agreement with German Volkswagen AG (VW) to provide modules and semiconductors that enable a complete electric vehicle (EV) traction inverter solution for VW’s next-generation platform family. The semiconductors are part of an overall system optimization and provide a solution that will support the front and rear traction inverters in the VW models.

As part of the agreement, onsemi will deliver in a first step its EliteSiC 1200 V traction inverter power modules. The EliteSiC power modules are pin-to-pin compatible to easily scale the solution to different power levels and types of motors. Teams from the two companies have been collaborating for more than a year on the optimization of the power modules for the next-generation platform, with pre-production samples under development and evaluation.

With 19 wafer fabrication and packaging manufacturing sites, onsemi provides VW with more than 500 different devices – including IGBTs, MOSFETS, image sensors and power management integrated circuits (PMICs). In addition to its versatile portfolio, onsemi has a vertical silicon carbide (SiC) production chain, which includes volume boule growth, wafering, substrate, epitaxy, device fabrication, best-in-class integrated modules and discrete package solutions, that perfectly support a secured supply chain.

The inverter solution for EVs consists of onsemi’s EliteSiC 1200 V 3x Half-Bridge Modules, and this system solution supports both axle inverters covering a wide range of power.