Slashdot: New Semiconductor Could Improve Vehicle Fuel Economy By 10 Percent

[freebeard]

New Semiconductor Could Improve Vehicle Fuel Economy By 10 Percent - Slashdot

From the summary:

Toyota says the PCU accounts for a quarter of the total electrical power losses in a hybrid drive system, and semiconductors alone make up a full fifth of the total. Reduce electrical losses through a semiconductor, and you can make your hybrid system (and therefore your car) more efficient. Toyota has done this, in theory at least, using a new silicon carbide material for its semiconductors, rather than a standard silicon unit.

The penultimate comment at the time of posting:

Found a better site (Score:4, Informative)
by AutodidactLabrat (3506801) on Friday May 23, 2014 @07:18PM (#47079825)
Looks like Toyota has produced the pinch-channel Class I V transistor in SiC with no minimum offset / gain.
Seriously, holy grail for current steering.
Can't find the vendor of the raw SiC so no idea about Delta-V / Delta-I limits but looks very good
10% net reduction in loss.

...but no better site link.

[Xist]

Notes from a presentation I attended for extra credit that never counted:

Srabanti Chowdury
Silicon is plateauing out. Over 10% of the energy generated is lost in inefficient power conversion, greater than the amount generated by solar, wind, and hydro combined, costing more than $40 billion a year, and requires 500 coal power plants. Toyota wanted to find a more efficient conductor to eliminate the cooling system. GaN is bio compatible and non-toxic, piezoelectric, pyroelectric, wide and direct bandgap and GaN LED are already well-developed. GaN is 10x better than normal silicon and 3-4x better than high-whatever Si. Forty percent of the volume of an inverter or LED driver are the magnetics, which GaN reduces.

Except you found something about SiC.

[gone-ot]

Silicon-carbide (SiC) is both strong (hard) & heat resistant, but VERY, VERY difficult to work with...almost up there with diamonds.

[freebeard]

It's interesting to see that there are options beyond better batteries.

"Why not both?"

[Cobb]

Well, at least a lot of the electronics in the prius is water cooled. Honda in its ima system still uses air cooling to keep things toasty warm.

[Frank Lee]

My '59 has none of those losses!

[Cobb]

Im pretty sure the regulator and rectifier in most alternators generates more than 10% heat or losses.