Selection of Semiconductor Material for Power Electronics Switching Devices in Electric Vehicles using TOPSIS Method

摘要

Semiconductor switches are an integral part of electric vehicles (EVs). The semiconductor materials used for fabrication of these switching devices has evolved a lot in the past few decades. Starting with Germanium which was later succeeded by Silicon, a wide number of semiconductor materials has been utilized in making power electronics switching devices. Recently Wide Band-gap (WBG) semiconductor materials are drawing a lot of attention in device manufacturing due to its superior performance over conventional semiconductor materials. In this paper various semiconductor materials which can be used for fabrication of power electronics switching devices in electric vehicles are compared with each other based on their material properties using Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method which is a multi-criteria decision analysis method. The materials are then ranked according to its performance upon various attributes. An optimum semiconductor material for switching devices in electric vehicles can be then decided depending on this rank.