Semiconductor History | Mitsubishi Electric Marunouchi — SiC Enters the Living Room
· 2010-8
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Semiconductor History | Mitsubishi Electric Marunouchi — SiC Enters the Living Room
kevin
On August 24, 2010, Mitsubishi Electric announced Kirigamine room air conditioners whose compressor inverters used silicon-carbide Schottky barrier diodes. The products reached consumers later that year, moving SiC power electronics from laboratories and industrial demonstrations into an everyday household appliance.
An inverter repeatedly switches electricity to control the compressor motor. Silicon carbide can block high voltage and switch with lower losses than conventional silicon devices, reducing wasted heat and allowing the power circuit and its cooling hardware to work more efficiently.
The good side was commercialization, not merely a record-setting prototype. A mass-market air conditioner forced device fabrication, module packaging, motor control, thermal design, appliance safety, and field reliability to operate as one product that ordinary buyers could use.
It also created a bridge to larger systems. The same material family later spread through industrial drives, rail traction, renewable-energy converters, and electric vehicles, where every avoided switching loss can reduce cooling or energy demand.
The episode shows why device leadership alone is insufficient. Mitsubishi Electric controlled the power chip, module, inverter, motor, and appliance, allowing engineers to trade cost and performance across the whole system and give an immature material a credible first market.
The bad side was that this was still a hybrid step. The inverter combined SiC diodes with silicon transistors, reflecting the higher cost, crystal-defect challenges, gate-control questions, and qualification burden that limited an immediate move to all-SiC power stages.
First adoption also carries warranty risk. Laboratory efficiency does not guarantee a lower household energy bill under every climate and usage pattern, and an expensive new semiconductor must justify itself against rapidly improving silicon alternatives.
The pictured Tokyo Building is Mitsubishi Electric’s current headquarters, not the Shizuoka Works that produces room air conditioners or the power-device development sites. The pin marks the corporate decision and product announcement while preserving that manufacturing geography.
Sources: [EE Times Japan report dated August 24, 2010](https://eetimes.itmedia.co.jp/ee/articles/1008/24/news104.html); [peer-reviewed history of SiC research and commercialization](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7443377/); [Mitsubishi Electric environmental report on the Kirigamine application](https://www.mitsubishielectric.com/en/sustainability/reports/pdf/2011/environmental_report.pdf); [Mitsubishi Electric air-conditioning history](https://www.mitsubishielectric.com/bu/air-conditioning-systems/history/).
Photo: Akonnchiroll, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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