Within the cycle “Dilluns de Ciència. Projectes de recerca per a millorar la nostra societat” (“Science Mondays. Research projects to improve our society”) organized by the “Residència d’Investigadors” and CSIC, Dr. Xavier Jordà from the PDS Group gave the talk entitled “Els dispositius semiconductors de potència: els músculs desconeguts de la microelectrònica” (“Power semiconductor devices: the unknown muscles of microelectronics”) on June 25^th, 2025.

Since the beginning of electronics, researchers and engineers have been developing increasingly imaginative solutions not only to process information, but also to “tame” electrical energy and adapt it to the needs required by each application: battery chargers, hydraulic pump and fan drives, traction circuits for locomotives and electric vehicles, etc. Today, the fundamental elements to be able to materialize these systems efficiently are sophisticated semiconductor devices, similar in some aspects to the well-known microprocessors of our computers and telephones, but capable of controlling enormous currents and voltages. They are the true and unknown “muscles” of microelectronics.