CoolCAD Electronics, LLC
Leading the Semiconductor Revolution with SiC

Silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors will play an increasingly critical role in powering our future, as high-power, high-temperature and opto-electronic applications continue to test the limits of conventional silicon devices. Transistors and ICs fabricated from SiC exhibit higher breakdown electric field strength, lower thermal expansion, a wider band gap, and better chemical reaction resistance than its traditional silicon-based counterparts. This makes SiC-based power electronics ideal for EVs, solar power conversion and aerospace, given their ability to ensure lighter and more compact power systems and reduced cooling requirement.

“We know that next-gen power semiconductors will be driven by SiC technology, which offers superior performance to unleash new possibilities,” says Dr. Neil Goldsman, cofounder of CoolCAD Electronics.

An innovator of high-power, high-temperature electronics, CoolCAD Electronics saw an opportunity to capitalize on its deep knowledge in electronics and semiconductor physics, fabrication and design to lead this revolution. It excels at designing and fabricating wide bandgap SiC semiconductor transistors and ICs for power and high-temperature electronics, green energy, and deep UV optical electronics applications. CoolCAD leverages in-depth semiconductor physics, including quantum mechanical Density Functional Theory, to design new transistors with unique doping profiles, layouts, processing steps, and materials to provide current and voltage performance advantages over standard devices.

“CoolCAD is engineering the wide bandgap semiconductor SiC to extend the microelectronics revolution to enable very efficient, fast-switching power transistors and very high-temperature CMOS integrated circuits, for applications in green energy and the more electric 21st century economy, as well as for sensing, processing and control in aircraft and rocket engines, industrial furnaces, space probes and other extreme environments,” states Dr. Goldsman.

CoolCAD uses SiC’s wide bandgap characteristics to design and fabricate electronics that can operate at temperatures significantly higher than silicon’s failure point. Its novel technology to build CMOS electronics with SiC gives these devices the ability to function at temperatures exceeding 400°C, as opposed to silicon-based chips with limited operational temperature and power handling capabilities. A key aspect of its technology is the MOSFET gate structure, offering the necessary symmetry between N-MOSFETs and P-MOSFETs, and materials that facilitate high-temperature operation. This gives CoolCAD’s SiC electronics an edge to efficiently operate in such environments with advanced processing and control. Its advanced SiC chips are ideal in jets, rockets, auto engines, and hypersonic vehicles, and have proven their efficiency in metal and semiconductor manufacturing furnaces and geothermal and nuclear energy plants.

CoolCAD’s core competency lies in its ability to design and fabricate power electronics that meet unique client requirements, including operating current, on-resistance, and gate resistance. This makes it a go-to partner for numerous government agencies to develop high-temperature, ultraviolet optoelectronics, and power electronics. For instance, it has been collaborating with NASA to develop SiC-based UV photodetector arrays for advanced spectroscopy that help identify atoms and molecules in outer space and planets. CoolCAD is also working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop SiC hightemperature analog-to-digital converters for their high-temperature defense platforms.

While other SiC companies focus solely on power transistors, CoolCAD fabricates SiC power transistors, high-temperature CMOS, and UV optoelectronics. This product diversity enables it to apply what it invents and develops in one product area to benefit the other. For example, the transconductance improvements CoolCAD has developed for low-power SiC CMOS devices have been applied to enhance the current-voltage characteristics of its power devices. In addition, it has used the results from Density Functional Theory Many Body Quantum Mechanics and advanced quantum tuning calculations to design its MOSFET gate structures, reducing MOSFET oxide defects and improving gate dielectric quality, and in turn, decreasing leakage currents.

Apart from producing and commercializing SiC power transistors and high-temperature CMOS integrated circuits, CoolCAD is well-known for testing and evaluating the effects of radiation on SiC power transistors. It provides these services for publicly traded semiconductor companies looking to determine whether the SiC parts they produce or use meet radiation tolerance standards. In addition, it offers design services for companies that want to produce their SiC chips and works with experts in the field to design and fabricate power converters for the U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy.