Dr. Victor Veliadis

Dr. Victor Veliadis is Executive Director & CTO of PowerAmerica, a member-driven consortium of industry, universities, and national labs accelerating the commercialization of energy efficient SiC and GaN power semiconductor technologies. At PowerAmerica, he has managed a budget of $152 million that he strategically allocated to over 210 industrial and University projects to catalyze SiC/GaN semiconductor and power electronics manufacturing, workforce development, and job creation. His PowerAmerica educational activities have trained 420 full-time students in collaborative industry/University WBG projects, and engaged over 4600 attendees in tutorials, short courses, and webinars. Dr. Veliadis is an ECE Professor at NCSU, and an IEEE Fellow and EDS Distinguished Lecturer. He has 27 issued U.S. patents, 6 book chapters, and over 150 peer-reviewed publications to his credit.

Prior to entering academia and taking an executive position at Power America in 2016, Dr. Veliadis spent 21 years in the semiconductor industry where his work included design, fabrication, and testing of SiC devices, GaN devices for military radar amplifiers, and financial and operations management of a commercial semiconductor fab. He has a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from John Hopkins University (1995).

Vehicle electrification catalyzing power SiC mass commercialization

SiC brings compelling advantages to vehicle electrification including higher efficiency, fast charging, weight/volume reductions, and ultimately cost savings. Indeed, electric vehicle system insertion has emerged as the mass commercialization opportunity for SiC power semiconductors catalyzing their explosive growth. In this presentation, the fab models of the vibrant SiC manufacturing infrastructure will be introduced. In particular, the modest capital investments to manufacture SiC in mature fully depreciated fabs, alongside Si, leverage existing infrastructure and allow for SiC fabrication at Si economies of scale. Key barriers to SiC volume adoption will be identified and discussed. Finally, the impact of the US$150M PowerAmerica member-driven consortium in accelerating SiC and GaN power technologies will be summarized.