Elif Balkas on photonics

In this episode of PEN's Power Corner, Aalyia Shaukat speaks with Dr. Elif Balkas, CTO of Wolfspeed, about the company's 300-millimeter silicon carbide (SiC) technology and its significance for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure. Dr. Balkas explains how Wolfspeed leveraged decades of crystal growth expertise to scale SiC wafer diameter to 300 mm—a move driven by the AI industry's demand for CMOS-compatible substrates and next-generation co-packaging architectures. The conversation covers how SIC’s unique combination of thermal conductivity, electrical insulation, mechanical strength, and resistivity makes it a compelling alternative to silicon and glass interposers in advanced packaging. Furthermore, how Wolfspeed’s 40+ year heritage and vertically-integrated supply chain are critical as they work towards commercialization. Dr. Balkas discusses the industry's looming thermal wall in data centers, anticipated to come in the next 2-3 years. She discusses how processor throttling due to heat is already a design constraint, and how SiC can help designers simplify architecture, reduce hot spots, and extract more value from increasingly power-dense packages. Dr. Balkas also addresses Wolfspeed's broader data center strategy—from its recently commercialized 10 kV SiC MOSFET for solid-state transformer (SST) applications to ongoing collaboration with foundries and OSATs on hybrid SiC-silicon packaging integration. She closes with a longer-range vision for SiC in optical interconnects, co-packaged optics, and eventually quantum computing—describing it as a material that, at the physics level, just keeps giving. 🎙 Listen to EE Times On Air podcasts on power, embedded, AI, and more: https://www.eetimes.com/podcasts/?utm... 🎥 Don't miss an episode and subscribe to our YouTube channel:    / @eetimes747   Stay up to date with the latest news in the electronics industry ➡️ EE Times: https://www.eetimes.com/?utm_source=e... ➡️ Power Electronics News: https://www.powerelectronicsnews.com/... ➡️ Embedded: https://www.embedded.com/?utm_source=... ➡️ EDN: https://www.edn.com/?utm_source=eetim... 📰 Subscribe to our newsletters: https://aspencore.dragonforms.com/loa... 🖥️ Attend free tech webinars: https://www.eetimes.com/webinars/?utm... 📈 Download free industry white papers: https://www.eetimes.com/techpapers/?u... 🎤 Check out our virtual events on EE Times: https://events.eetimes.com/?utm_sourc... 🎉 Interested in advertising opportunities? Reach out to [email protected]