To take up the challenges presented in the front page of the ISGE group, we must design and realize the future generations of intelligent high voltage switches (600 V and beyond). Switching and conduction losses have to be minimized and a better thermal management has to be ensured. In this way, intrinsic characteristics of semiconductor devices have to be strongly improved and new architectures of devices have to be proposed.

In the “New devices” team, we propose to develop new unipolar and bipolar architectures with MOS control (power MOSFETs and IGBTs). These new devices will take part in the evolution of the power conversion of energy. From the integration point of view, MOS devices exhibit very interesting properties: they can operate at high frequency, and so it would be possible to minimize the size of the passive components of power converter. But their on-state resistance must be strongly decreased to minimize conduction losses. Furthermore, the increase in their switching frequency requires new devices architectures making it possible to decrease the input capacitance.