ASSIST aims to establish a sovereign supply chain to empower the UK with a capability for higher voltage Silicon Carbide (SiC) devices at voltage and current ratings that are significantly differentiated from devices currently available on the market. The project will establish manufacturing readiness across three levels of the supply chain to create end to end capability that covers wafer fabrication, device packaging and power electronic converter manufacture.

Building on the success of a previous DER project SiC-MAP, Clas-SiC will refine a Process Design Kit to establish capability for 3300V SiC MOSFET manufacture. Alter UK will augment their established plastic encapsulation process capability to establish a packaging process for the SiC devices that delivers low to medium level device volumes at costs synonymous with high volume offshore assembly. Both processes will enable capability across the wider UK PEMD community.

Wide Band Gap devices, such as SiC MOSFET, enable realisation of high performance power electronic converters. As the UK looks to address the challenge of meeting the increase of electricity demand that will take place with the widespread adoption of Heat Pumps and Electric Vehicles, power electronics will play a central role to delivering solutions that provide the necessary flexibility for the electricity distribution network to meet that need.

The realisation of high voltage, high current SiC MOSFETs through ASSIST will transform the proposition for Solid State Transformer (SST) to realise a cost effective and highly efficient compact solution to that unlocks this significant opportunity. Turbo Power Systems will productionise an SST module using 3300V devices that greatly simplifies the already established proposition usings available 1200V devices.

The eligible project costs are £1,618,824 across four partners - Clas-SiC Wafer fab, Alter Technology UK, Turbo Power Systems and the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, for which £1,093,472 funding contributions is sought.