PowerAmerica gains Dr Jon Zhang as director of Power Device Technology

PowerAmerica – a manufacturing institute consisting of public and private partners from the semiconductor industry, the US Department of Energy (DoE), national laboratories and academia – says that Dr Jon Zhang has joined it as director of Power Device Technology.

                                                                   Picture: Dr Jon Zhang.

Zhang received his PhD in 2001 from the University of South Carolina, and has spent the last 16 years innovating in silicon carbide (SiC) power devices. His record of achievement includes writing a book chapter on SiC devices; coauthoring more than 75 technical papers and conference presentations; and being the first inventor on 64 US and numerous international patents (with more applications pending).

Milestones also include demonstrating the industry’s first reported trench MOSFET with dual buffer layers on SiC (2005), the first reported 12kV insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) on SiC (2007), the first reported trench Schottky diode on SiC (2009), the first reported bipolar junction transistor (BJT) with high current gain of >100 on SiC (2010), the first reported 12kV gate turn-off thyristor on SiC (2011), and the first reported 12kV optically triggered gate turn-off thyristor on SiC (2012).

Zhang has “an outstanding track record of accomplishment in power semiconductor devices and will play a key role in supporting the PowerAmerica goal of creating US manufacturing jobs through accelerated adoption of SiC and GaN power electronics,” says deputy executive director & chief technology officer Dr Victor Veliadis.