Q&A with UKRI: Creating a semiconductor community

What opportunities exist and what still needs to be addressed to avoid production issues? Scale-up is essential to allow companies to grow together as a community for everyone to benefit from the network and ecosystem. 

Electronic Specifier spoke with Professor Will Drury, Driving the Electric Revolution Challenge Director for UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) about creating a semiconductor community.

Driving the Electric Revolution is one of UKRI’s industrial strategy challenge funds and looks at growing the supply chains for power electronics, electric machines, and drives. £80 million has been invested in activities focusing on what needs to be done to start making products in the UK.

Underpinning the investment is the need to bring the community together and get people talking.

Could you give me your thoughts on the current chip shortage and the consequences this is having across industry?

I think it's well documented that the current chip shortage is not going to finish tomorrow – it’s a medium-term problem, certainly in automotive where I think the first flag was raised. But it's not the only thing that's in shortage.

Take a look at the global supply chains, people are looking to shorten the supply chain to create more vertically integrated solutions. I think we're going to start seeing more vertical integration of organisations as we go forward.

It's clearly slowing down production. We've got readers who are interested in wideband-gap, next-generation stuff for power switching and control so it's going to be the sort of issue that we are going to see continuing.

We need to remember that this technology underpins net zero. Without it, we can’t generate electricity. The chip shortage will slow down the manufacturing of converters, it's not going to grind to a halt, but it does also present opportunities and it's placed a spotlight on what's an often-overlooked sector. People don't realise when you put your phone on to charge you’ve just used power electronics. So actually, spotlighting this really important technology is positive for the industry.

What needs to be addressed to avoid production issues?

Skills is absolutely a key player, we've got a great ecosystem. It's also about making sure that the system comes together, with supply and demand working hand in glove.

By building that ecosystem of people and adopting the technology, cost will come down which increases adoption, but it also allows companies to make a profit and reinvest in the technology so that we can start to build that continual momentum in industrial research.

It's also about explaining to people what this industry is. I’m absolutely adamant that we need a wider range of people coming into this sector. People come from different backgrounds, which means they look at things differently, which means that they go ‘why are you doing it that way?’. Challenge the normal, be brave, stand up and get other people excited as well.

If you want to make a difference in net zero then power electronics, electric machines and drive systems are where we’re going to make a significant change – whether it's from the energy generation, how we use the energy, micro grids, power conversion or the high level of silicon carbide devices that are starting to become available. This sort of thing is encouraging people to look at this as not just engineering, but a truly green technology.

What can the UK do to help address the chip shortage and mitigate future risk?

What we need to be doing is working with our partners to ensure it comes back to the supply chain – what are we providing, where are we providing it and how do we ensure continued supply? That is really important but we're not going to solve it all, we need to come back to a collaborative view of the world. We need to collaborate with trusted partners to solve future needs rather than just the here and now.

How will the UK’s R&D capabilities play a role in the semiconductor industry?

Within semiconductors we are doing a huge amount, in fact we are world leading in semiconductor research and innovation.

We’re doing a phenomenal amount of work around compound semiconductors, leading in that area, and the Government has made investments in this area highlighting the interest and understanding that this is a key technology.

There's now an opportunity to pull some research through – it's not just about how the chip on device is designed and made, it's how you package that device. We've invested in companies looking at how to package these devices. Take something that is gallium nitride, it’s got some great properties but if I put it into a package that’s designed for silicone, I’ve lost those properties and their benefits.

The challenge is to take that great innovation or great idea and start to make it so can be used. It’s about taking world class research into production.

As I said, we are doing some phenomenal stuff whether it is world leading activities on GaN failure modes in Bristol, or McLaren releasing details on an 800V silicon carbide inverter. We have the people, we just don't have enough of them and that's where we can continue to invest in our people, which will allow us to keep at the forefront and pull it through. If we don't do that, we can do wonderful things but never actually drive them forward.

It is perhaps well known that the semiconductor industry has a huge carbon footprint and, in an attempt to increase production, many companies and countries are embarking on big programmes to boost the industry but surely as the industry attempts to grow, so too does its carbon footprint. What are some of the steps semiconductor manufacturers can take to meet net-zero targets?

I think that understanding the amount of energy that it takes to make things is absolutely critical to how, as a country or as a world, we're going to meet net zero. There's a lot of ongoing research around manufacturing processes, how things are made, the different processes etc. that are coming to the fore. There's no magic wand to say that suddenly we can make semiconductors without using any energy. It takes energy to do that. But without semiconductors, we can't do any of the net zero activities we want. It's an area where we've got to make sure we continue to invest in looking at how we make things more efficiently.

This is true across all sectors and all industries. Take process efficiency – how do we optimise process efficiency using things like Industry 4.0 where we can optimise wider systems? Why have we never done this before?

The bigger you make your boundary (where you’re looking at the energy used) the harder it is to do because it’s a more complex system. We do need to continue to innovate and research on that bigger efficiency piece, rather than just focusing on ‘how do we make the design of devices more efficient?’

How do you see the semiconductor industry changing over the next 5-10 years?

I want to touch on the wideband-gap power space, which I think is going to become much more normal. It’s already prevalent in the automotive space but I think it’s going to pick up.

I’ve already spoken about optimisation and how to optimise process and the use of semiconductors to achieve this is going to become more important.

We're also going to see an evolution within our chips and devices as well. There is a lot of discussion around the wideband-gap activities, silicon still continues to develop and there is still a place for it. I think we're going to get much more focused on getting the requirements from it.

We're going to see more power semiconductors, from some of the reports I’ve read. We’ll also start to see more appropriately packaged devices that will allow us to really get the most out of some products on the market.

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