Anvil Semiconductors Ltd

Anvil Semiconductors was established in August 2010 as a spin-out from the School of Engineering of the University of Warwick to exploit patented developments (6 patents) in Silicon Carbide (SiC) Power Semiconductor technology. Anvil Semiconductors has received seed investments from Midven’s Early Advantage fund and from Minerva, the Midlands network of entrepreneurs and business angels. The technology transfer arm of Warwick University, Warwick Ventures Ltd, played a major role in the formation and funding of Anvil Semiconductors.

The founders, Prof. Phil Mawby and Dr. Peter Ward enjoy global recognition for their expertise in the fields of Power Devices, their modelling and applications (Mawby); and industrial R&D and manufacturing (Ward). They have published widely on these topics, and have excellent contacts with industry and other leading research institutions around the world.

With the advent of global warming, rapidly increasing demand for energy and concerns over the security of supply of traditional carbon based fuels, the requirement for alternative and sustainable energy sources is now recognised by governments throughout the world. This is coupled with a need to ensure the most efficient storage, distribution and use of the generated electrical energy. Power semiconductors are fundamental to the efficient control and use of all the technologies being developed to meet these needs from Solar and Wind energy generation, through new transportation technologies (eg hybrid and electric cars, electric trains, aircraft and ships), to distribution via the Smart Grid.

The Power Semiconductor market is currently worth $10 billion (2009) and predicted to grow at 8.6% per annum for the decade 2010-2020. At that rate by 2020 the total market will be valued at $23 billion.

The current Power Semiconductor market is dominated by Silicon. The performance of this technology has improved steadily as the technology has matured over the past 20 years, but has now reached the stage where its fundamental material properties limit the capability and efficiency of power semiconductor systems. The superior material properties of Silicon Carbide (SiC) have been recognised as the way forward for the last 20 years and many announcements of breakthroughs have been made, yet to date the SiC transistors available perform poorly compared to their potential, and production costs are very high.

Anvil Semiconductor’s ambition is to enable SiC to displace Silicon in the market range of $1billion to $5 billion per annum mainly in Electric Vehicle, Smart Grid, Photovoltaic and Wind Turbine inverter applications. Further, low cost SiC power devices must be regarded as a disruptive technology which will enable new applications to be realised and hence the final market size will be much greater than that considered above.