Last month, members of the REWIRE team from the University of Warwick and University of Bristol were in Busan, South Korea, attending the largest global gathering dedicated purely to silicon Carbide. REWIRE Research Fellow Nikolaos Iosifidis shares his highlights from attending the 2025 edition of the International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ICSCRM).
With over 2000 attendees, ICSCRM is the largest global gathering dedicated to SiC, including a contingent of REWIRE researchers from Warwick and Bristol. The event, held this year in Busan, South Korea, brought together leading voices from both academia and industry, offering a packed program of talks on the latest breakthroughs in SiC power devices, and a major exhibition with over 150 companies in attendance.
Among the highlights was the rapid progress being made in SiC superjunction (SJ) MOSFETs, which offer great savings in on-state resistance. While academia explores the boundaries of SiC SJ at high voltage (≥3.3 kV) for markets such as the grid, the major chip manufacturers are focusing on SJ implementation at 1200 V to optimise the performance of future automotive devices. Both sides focused on the practical fabrication challenges of SJs, including advances in the three practical fabrication methods: high energy implantation and multi-epitaxial growth, deep trench etching and re-filling, and deep etching coupled with side-wall implantation.
Considerable attention was devoted to the SiC–oxide interface, with particular focus on the development of deposited oxides. Atomic Layer Deposition, in particular is emerging as a highly promising route to enhance interface quality, boost channel mobility and improve long-term device reliability. Discussions highlighted the critical role of interface trap density, passivation strategies, and defect engineering, which remain central challenges for improving channel mobility and device stability. Plasma treatments applied before and after oxide deposition were also emphasised as effective techniques to improve the SiC–oxide interface and enhance channel mobility.
A milestone presented at ICSCRM was the first demonstration of commercially grown P-type SiC substrates, a long-awaited achievement that opens the door to ultra-high voltage (6.5-15 kV) SiC bipolar devices, for pulsed power and grid applications. Another important step forward in the SiC field was the successful demonstration of 300 mm N-type substrates, offering the potential to bring SiC technology in close alignment with the latest Si device processing platforms in the years to come.
There was also growing interest in radiation-hard SiC devices, with researchers tackling the challenges of deploying SiC technology in harsh environments and even adapting designs for future use in space.
Warwick’s team had a strong and visible presence at the conference, contributing with a record 1 invited talk, 7 oral presentations, and 10 posters, which was one of the largest contribution to the conference by a single institution. We shared our latest results across a wide spectrum of topics: from advanced fabrication techniques like Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) for high-k and ferroelectric oxides and Atomic Layer Etching (ALE), to state-of-the-art materials characterization tools such as Optical Pump–Terahertz Probe (OPTP) spectroscopy and Time-of-Flight Elastic Recoil Detection (ToF-ERD). We also presented work on 3.3 kV SiC semi-SJ MOSFET design, fabrication, and testing, our exploration of N-i-P diode structures enabled by the newly grown P-type SiC substrates, as well as novel radiation-hard device designs and reliability studies of commercial SiC MOSFETs under space conditions.
With the unique funding provided by REWIRE, the Warwick team is leading the way in tackling the very latest challenges in SiC processing and device development, together with leading industry collaborators including Oxford Instruments Plasma Technologies, Bosch, Pallidus, Hitachi Energy, and many more.