Danfoss, General Electric Join Forces
Danfoss Silicon Power has announced it is establishing production in the U.S. and entering into a collaboration with industrial giant General Electric (GE). The collaboration means that Danfoss Silicon Power will become the world’s leading provider of silicon-carbide (SiC) power modules.
The SiC power modules will create smaller, faster, and more effective electronic devices — and are expected to revolutionize the technology within solar and wind energy as well as the future generations of electric and hybrid cars.
The transatlantic collaboration between Danfoss and GE will be part of New York Power Electronics Manufacturing Consortium (NY-PEMC) in upstate New York, which will focus on the development of next-generation semiconductor materials and packaging to enable the creation of smaller, faster, and more efficient mobile devices. The private-public consortium and other similar programs were established in 2014 by the state of New York with a total investment of more than $20 billion for the creation of high-tech jobs.
Danfoss Silicon Power, based in Flensburg, Germany, will establish SiC power modules packaging operations in Utica, New York, by early 2018, and is expected to create hundreds of jobs in the coming years. GE will provide SiC chips for the modules.
The Utica facility will allow Danfoss Silicon Power to better serve its U.S. customer base and will bring cost efficiency and quality manufacturing to the fast-growing SiC industry. Danfoss Silicon Power, one of the world’s leading, independent custom power module manufacturers, serving the automotive, renewable energy and industrial sectors, chose New York for the state’s strong technology ecosystem and skilled workforce. The facility expands the company’s presence in the U.S. and complements the output of its Flensburg, Germany, operations.
The news was announced Friday by Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor of New York State, which is financing all startup costs as well as production facilities. Danfoss will lease both the facility and equipment from New York State and occupy the entire facility in Utica, which includes two cleanrooms, labs, offices, and logistics space.
“This is a very important step for Danfoss, as the U.S. is our biggest market and essential to our business. The cooperation with GE has great strategic impact for Danfoss; it is important for our future growth plans in the U.S., and we have big expectations for the further developments in this highly-specialized area,” says Danfoss Executive Vice President and COO Kim Fausing.
With 330,000 employees, GE is one of the world’s leading industrial companies. It has invested millions of dollars to develop ultra-thin SiC chips, which will be used in the power modules manufactured by Danfoss.
"Today the U.S. demand for power modules is mainly driven through Japanese and German imports. With this investment, Danfoss will offer the U.S. market a strong local partner, capable of providing best-in-class packaging technology and high volume, high quality manufacturing," says Claus A. Petersen, general manager and vice president of Danfoss Silicon Power. (Watch a video of Petersen explaining more about the collaboration.)
The SiC power modules are the answer to the global demand for smaller, faster, and more effective electronic devices. For example, SiC power modules can reduce power consumption in electric cars by 10 percent and the energy consumption in data centers by 5 percent, just as they can lower the weight of an airplane by more than half a ton. In the future, the power modules are also expected to be applied in other sectors like shipping, offshore, and hospitals.
