Starkville’s SemiSouth earns more patents

STARKVILLE — SemiSouth has been awarded its third US patent in 2009, and 18th overall in SiC power electronics technology. The patents cover methods of making normally-off SiC JFETs, self-aligned SiC fabrication methods and integration of SiC JFET, diodes and circuits.

According to Dr. Jeff Casady, chief technology officer and vice president of business development, the recent patents were the result of focused efforts, led by SemiSouth engineers in pushing the technology forward for both near-term and long-term products. “Our normally-off SiC JFET, the most energy efficient and cost effective SiC power transistor switch, is an extremely important product to SemiSouth and its customers. After sampling the product globally for over one year, we are seeing very positive signs of adoption by our customer base in solar inverters, telecom power supplies and other applications,” Casady said.

Dr. David Sheridan, SemiSouth’s director of engineering, added, “These specific patents allow us to further strength the intellectual property we have around the normally-off SiC JFET, including different process designs and methods to integrate for added chip functionality in the future.”