Marelli presents its new Silicon Carbide inverters at Dritev

Marelli has developed a new, complete platform of 800 Volt Silicon Carbide (SiC) inverters, ensuring improvements in terms of inverters’ size, weight and especially efficiency, which is a critical parameter in electric vehicles. The platform is presented for the first time at the International VDI Congress “Dritev” (Drivetrain Transmission Electrification in Vehicles), held in Baden Baden, Germany, on July 6 and 7 2022, where Marelli is showcasing its electrification technologies.

Due to its excellent performance at high temperature and high voltage – enabling smaller, lighter and more efficient solutions – Silicon Carbide is recognised as a technology of choice for power electronics. Thus, it is particularly suitable for inverters, which convert DC (Direct Current) power derived from batteries to AC (Alternating Current) electric power used in electric vehicles’ motors. In addition to this, Marelli’s new 800 Volt inverter platform also features an optimised thermal structure, thanks to innovative structural and cooling channel designs that drastically reduce the thermal resistance between the SiC components themselves and the cooling liquid. This is a critical aspect in high power applications, where the heat rejection of the power module is significant. 

Among the main advantages, the new inverter platform presented by Marelli can extract more energy from the battery at a higher efficiency and secure a significant increase in the driving range of a vehicle. It also ensures faster charging times and better acceleration. Finally, a smaller and more efficient inverter allows a reduction in battery size which delivers cost, weight and sustainability benefits.

The software for all the inverters in Marelli’s range is developed in-house by the company and is hosted by an Electric Control Unit located in the same inverter case. The software is compliant with AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) standards and specifically customized for the diagnostic standards required by car makers. Functional Safety requirements are compliant to ASIL D (Automotive Safety Integrity Level D) standard.

The new 800 Volt SiC platform completes the inverters range offered by Marelli, resulting from over ten years of experience, that includes also 400 Volt solutions based both on IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) and Silicon Carbide, and Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based converters in development.