Updating you on our mission to transform next-generation power electronics
The First Year Review - by Dr. Katie Hore, REWIRE Innovation Director
Welcome to the first REWIRE newsletter. As we conclude our first year, reflecting on the highs (and occasional lows) of establishing a new innovation and knowledge centre within a university has been insightful.
REWIRE was awarded £11 million of UKRI funding in April 2024. In my then role in industry I attended the prelaunch event where Evelyn Welch, the Bristol Vice Chancellor gave an inspiring speech about the hard work that went into the writing of the grant application, and the amazing research and innovation REWIRE would be doing. Then began the hard work of implementing all those ambitions.
Research started immediately, as did the much less fun task of recruitment. Along with the core REWIRE Operations Team, I joined in Autumn 2024 as Innovation Director. For the past 7 months the Operations Team have been working to set up the processes and governance to support REWIRE's core aims:
Alex Oliver, REWIRE's Business Partnerships Lead, the academics and I have been working to make connections and expand REWIRE’s network across the UK and the global semiconductor industry. We have attended events including the UK Nitrides and NMI conferences, international delegations, and Government visits to the USA and Taiwan.
We had a fantastic Showcase event last December. It was brilliant to see so many people from industry, academia and the media keen to learn about REWIRE. Victor Veliadis of Power America gave our keynote talk on his experiences of accelerating wide bandgap chip and power electronics commercialisation. We had poster presentations by postgraduate researchers and demos including a comparison between silicon-based and gallium nitride-based laptop chargers – can you guess which felt hotter?
Keep an eye out for your invite to 2025’s showcase in an exciting new location! This is your unofficial save the date for 18th November 2025.
Our first major international event will be at PCIM in Nuremberg this May, where we’ll have our own booth as part of the ECPE joint stand. There will also be talks from Bristol and Warwick academics and ECRs on REWIRE research. Other events coming up include UK Semiconductor, where I will be updating on REWIRE’s first year of activity and the Centre for Power Electronics Annual Conference, where we will be exhibiting. Both events are in sunny (hopefully) Sheffield in July. We hope to see plenty of familiar and new faces at these events, all keen to learn more about REWIRE.
We have launched the first round of our Open Call for Power Semiconductor Innovation. A huge thank you to our Centre Manager, Aby and our Commercial Research Manager, Luntu for all the planning and logistics to get the call out. There's still time to apply, but act fast—applications close on 30th April! Or keep an eye out for our next funding call, which we are hoping to launch around summer 2025.
This edition includes an update on our Use Cases, insightful blogs and the role of power semiconductors in achieving Net Zero. We hope you enjoy!
REWIRE News and Blogs
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest going on across REWIRE and our partners. A few recent highlights include:
REWIRE’s Innovation Director Katie Hore and REWIRE academics from the Bristol Business School discuss the importance of critical minerals, their role in the power semiconductor technologies, and insights about the impact of critical mineral supply chains and the need for resilience.
Are you curious about the technology that powers your world? From ultra-fast smartphone charging to electric cars with incredible range, power semiconductors are the invisible force making it possible. In ‘Power Semiconductors for Everyone!’, we are going to dive into how these tiny components work and how they are revolutionising our lives!
We are organising a Webinar series that will provide insight to the impact of wide-band gap semiconductors and technologies, and the amazing research and innovation our academics and partners are leading on. We hope to announce in the very near future.
If you want to engage with future workshops or webinars, including contributing to them, please get in touch with the REWIRE operational team.
What conferences will you see REWIRE at over the next few months?
PCIM 2025 – Nuremberg, Germany, 6-8 May 2025. We will have a booth as part of the ECPE Joint Stand. Come have a chat with us if you are there!
CSMantech 2025 – New Orleans, USA, 19-22 May 2025. Several REWIRE researchers will be presenting their ground-breaking work.
iMAPS Academic Conference 2025 – London, UK, 19 June 2025. Katie Hore will be presenting about the value and benefits of academic-industry collaboration.
UK Semiconductor 2025 – Sheffield, UK, 2-3 July 2025. Katie Hore will be presenting a review of REWIRE's achievements across its first year of operation.
Centre for Power Electronics Conference 2025 – Sheffield, UK, 8-9 July 2025. We will be exhibiting at CPE, come talk to us about how REWIRE can help you with commercialisation and innovation.
The REWIRE team will be keeping a close eye on future calls and funding opportunities, including from UKRI and Horizon Europe. We are keen to build consortia around specific calls of relevance to leverage additional funding and help transform the next generation of power electronics. If you want to be part of these consortia and co-develop future grant applications, please get in touch with the REWIRE operations team to facilitate this. Relevant funding opportunities that are currently open are listed below:
REWIRE launched its first open call for groundbreaking projects on wide band gap (WBG) and ultra-wide band gap (UWBG) power semiconductors. The call aims to accelerate innovation, support cutting-edge research, and create connections across the UK power semiconductor industry.
This intervention is seeking to support innovative and proof-of-concept projects on WBG and UWBG power semiconductors from a diverse range of industry and academic partners with funding of up to £50,000 per project. It is a great opportunity to advance your research, accelerate development and commercialisation and connect with the REWIRE network.
The closing date for the open call is 30 April 2025. More details are available on the REWIRE website.
InnovateUK has announced a funding competition on semiconductor hardware. Proposals must comprehensively address the feasibility of an advancement in semiconductor hardware design or fabrication that could significantly impact the effectiveness of UK businesses operating in one or more of the critical technology areas.
A project’s total eligible grant funding request must be between £75,000 and £300,000. Applications must be submitted by 29 May 2025.
The EU have launched their 2025 Electronic Components and Systems Research and innovation funding calls, including opportunities focusing on RISC-V, heterogenous integration in automotives, AI tools and automation. UK SMEs, RTOs, universities, and large companies are all eligible and must apply as part of a “consortium” which includes organisations from other Chips JU countries.
Phase 1 deadlines are 29 April 2025. More details are available on the Chips JU website.
The IC Taiwan Grand Challenge aims to make the most of Taiwan's expertise in semiconductor technology by combining chips with important innovations, and by attracting global talent to Taiwan, driving business opportunities and fostering industry development.
More details are available on the ICTGC website. The Round 3 application deadline is 30 June 2025.
New Partners Update
Over the first year of operation, REWIRE is delighted to have engaged with our partners, both old and new. To mark our 1-year anniversary, we wanted to highlight one of our new partners that we are really excited about working with over the coming years.
We have started actively collaborating with KuasaSemi, a UK-based SME developing innovative and intuitive semiconductor design solutions for next-generation wide band gap (WBG) semiconductor technologies and devices.
Their TCAD solutions have been developed with the needs of engineers in mind, making advanced semiconductor design more accessible, precise, efficient and reliable. KuasaSemi’s design software features dedicated WBG models and techniques to address the unique properties of such materials.
REWIRE is excited to be engaged with KuasaSemi and we hope that future collaborations in the WBG design space will lead to dramatic and impactful developments for the IKC, the company and the sector more broadly.
A new R&D development designed to support the growth of semiconductor packaging has received a £9 million funding to help create new opportunities for manufacturers in the power electronics sector. The centre, hosted by the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) and part of the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Net Zero Innovation Centre (ANZIC) is set to open in 2025.
A new £250 million investment has been announced by Vishay Intertechnology, partner of the REWIRE project, into the UK’s largest semiconductor facility in Newport. The significant investment from is a ringing endorsement of the South Wales and UK’s industrial ambitions and capabilities in power semiconductors and will support hundreds of highly skilled jobs in South Wales Compound Semiconductor Cluster.
Published two years after the UK Semiconductor Strategy, a white paper from TechUK has stated that if the nation is to fulfil its ambition to become a science and technology superpower, it needs to be a global player in the semiconductor industry. According to the recently published UK Plan for Chips, the UK needs to not only build on its strengths but also foster new opportunities for the semiconductor industry.
Call to action
We want to add value to businesses by enabling knowledge exchange and commercialisation of new technology. Our impact can only be maximised by hearing from across the industrial power electronics landscape. To achieve this, we need your input!
We would love to hear about what you think REWIRE should deliver and where you see power electronics and power semiconductors moving over the coming years.
What are the most important challenges in the sector that can be overcome through industry-academia and cross-sectoral collaboration?
Where can we collectively deliver the most impact?
What activities would you like to engage with and see REWIRE deliver?
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