In this article IDTechEx gives a short overview of the topic of wide bandgap semiconductors covering the fundamental material science, the key players, the market potential. The impact on a range of applications will also be discussed, with a focus on renewable energy systems and microgrids.

IDTechEx attended the event last week to meet with key stakeholders including industrial OEMs, power module manufacturers, established semiconductor companies and innovative new GaN (gallium nitride) and SiC (silicon carbide) developers to report back on the current and future trends. The following article is the second of two parts and provides a summary of some of the key GaN related developments and at the event and their impact on various industries and applications.

IDTechEx attended the event last week to meet with key stakeholders including industrial OEMs, power module manufacturers, established semiconductor companies and innovative GaN (gallium nitride and SiC (silicon carbide) developers to report back on the current and future trends.

Single crystal silicon photovoltaics will now be very affordable, obsoleting polycrystalline Si PV by having efficiency much higher. Laminating it onto supercapacitor sheeting will form a load bearing material that both makes and stores electricity, delivering it exceptionally fast when needed.

In the past five years or so several major research groups have demonstrated that robots can learn to grasp novel varied objects with accuracy levels around 80-85%. Still performance levels, even in the labs, are sub-human but this is changing fast.

Trucking is a big business. In this article we will demonstrate how and why trucking driving is going autonomous.

This article covers a number of topics to highlight how robotic technology within agriculture is altering the landscape.

Trucking is a big business. In the US, trucking industry revenues are in excess of $726bn. No wonder then that autonomous trucking is a hot topic.

This article works through the issues facing the development of thermoelectric harvesting, including high power, modular thermoelectric technology and turnkey thermoelectric generators.

The event Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Forum consisted a conference with about 70 delegates and a small display area for a few organisations. Here we give some details of the presentations that particularly caught our attention.