Silicon Carbide Industry Hub

Ron Foster - University of Arkansas
foster@uark.edu

The Silicon Carbide Industry Hub is interested in the potential to create nationwide collaborations resulting in accelerated commercialization of specific technologies. Silicon carbide material has been chosen as a demonstration vehicle. The current market for silicon carbide devices is limited to a few niche markets serviced by specialized facilities and equipments. However, there appears to be strong market pull. With this combination of attributes we anticipate that multiple players will be motivated to collaborate, with benefit of being able to share of specialized resources to accomplish higher level goals. Overall, activities of the hub will include matching strengths of various university/industry partners and developing templates for cooperative efforts.

The objective of the current project is to demonstrate success in one specific technology area where we believe that university/industry collaboration can result in rapid advancement by effectively bringing together distributed resources in a cooperative fashion. On the planned demonstration project, partners may involve Purdue, Mississippi State, University of Southern Carolina, University of Arkansas, along with companies such as Arkansas Power Electronics Inc. (APEI), Power Electronics Leveling Solutions, Inc. (PELS), Semi-South, Inc. and Northrup Grumman. Government agencies, NASA and DoD, may be included as both participants and customers.

 Our hub currently consists of local members, as well as a couple of extended relationships at NASA Glenn and Northrup Grumman. In addition, a partnership has developed between local company APEI, UA university participants, and Semi-South, Inc., a spin-off of Mississippi State University. This partnership has resulted in a $2M Advanced Technology Program grant from NIST. In addition, one UA professor has joined with Oregon small business Linguent, Inc., and together won an NSF SBIR Phase I grant (Phase II is currently pending). Finally, small business PELS has recently won a NASA SBIR Phase I grant and has begun the execution phase. This company is formed around a local collaboration between an Electrical Engineering. professor with expertise in power electronics and a Civil Engineering professor with expertise in computer simulation.

Plans are to continue expanding the reach of the current collaboration by approaching university, small business and government lab participants across the nation and inviting them into a collaborative relationship. A list of contacts has been developed, and an approach has been planned.