Browse Good-Ark engineering articles by rectifiers, protection, automotive, MOSFET, SiC, solar, Schottky, power supply, bridge, Zener, and sourcing topics.
One multiplication explains most of it: the voltage across the diode multiplied by the current through it gives the power it turns into heat. Everything else — why some diodes run cooler, why a heatsink helps, why the same part survives in one product and fails in another — follows from that number and from … Read more
Everything a diode does comes from one thin boundary inside it. The package, the leads and the markings are just delivery; the behaviour lives in a zone a few micrometres wide where two differently treated regions of silicon meet, and understanding that zone makes the rest of the device class predictable rather than mysterious. Two … Read more
Almost every beginner destroys something by fitting a diode the wrong way round, and the reason is nearly always the same: the band on the package marks the cathode, and most people assume the banded end is the positive one. Getting this single convention straight prevents the majority of early failures in this device class. … Read more
A diode is the simplest interesting component in electronics: it conducts in one direction and blocks in the other. What makes it worth learning first is that almost every power supply, every battery circuit and every electronic device you own depends on that single behaviour, and the rest of the device catalogue is variations on … Read more
Doubling the battery voltage looks like a simple change and behaves like a redesign. It halves the current needed for the same power, which is why it is attractive; it also changes what the semiconductors have to block, which is why silicon carbide ends up in the design rather than silicon. Last updated: October 11, … Read more
Every material used to make a semiconductor device can be described by one number: the energy an electron must gain to break free of the atomic lattice and start conducting. That number, the band gap, predicts how much voltage the material can hold, how much current it leaks when hot, and even what colour light … Read more
An inverter is the only part of a home solar system that works every day the sun rises, and it is usually the first major component to be replaced. Its efficiency is therefore not a laboratory number: every per cent is energy that either reaches your house or becomes heat inside a box mounted on … Read more
The reason a silicon carbide device costs several times what an electrically comparable silicon part costs is not difficult to understand, and it is almost entirely upstream of the device. The expensive part is the wafer, and the wafer is expensive because growing this crystal is slow, hot and difficult. Last updated: October 11, 2026 … Read more
Both materials are described as wide bandgap, both switch faster than silicon, and both appear in products you can buy today. The reason they are not competitors in most designs is simple: they occupy different voltage territory, and the boundary between them is where most of the engineering decisions live. Last updated: October 11, 2026 … Read more
Two cars with similar batteries can charge at noticeably different rates, and part of the difference sits in the power electronics rather than in the cells. Silicon carbide is one reason a converter can handle more power in a smaller, cooler box — but it is an enabler rather than the cause, and understanding where … Read more
There is a reasonable chance you have held silicon carbide in your hand without knowing it, because the same material that makes an abrasive disc also makes a power transistor. The difference between the two is not chemistry but crystal quality: a bonded mass of hard grains and a single crystal grown for electronics are … Read more
Silicon carbide has been in industrial use for more than a century as an abrasive, and only in the last few decades has it become a semiconductor worth building power converters around. That history is worth knowing, because it explains both why the material is not exotic and why devices made from it are still … Read more
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