ITHACA — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Monolith Semiconductor, Inc. of Ithaca $3.2 million in funding to develop a next-generation power-conversion technology.
The award is among 14 projects for which the DOE announced $27 million in funding from its Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the agency said in a news release.
The project, including the one that Monolith Semiconductor is working on, could “dramatically” transform how power is controlled and converted throughout the grid, ARPA-E said.
(Sponsored)
Why Now Is the Time To Start Planning for Your Company’s Business Succession
You’ve built a great business, and you love what you do. Retirement is a long way off, so why worry about how you’ll transition the ownership of your company down
How Does New York State’s Clean Slate Act Impact You?
On November 16, 2023, Governor Hochul signed into law the Clean Slate Act which automatically seals criminal records for certain crimes. The law (effective next year), provides that misdemeanors are
The projects, selected under ARPA-E’s SWITCHES program, aim to find “innovative” ways to lower the cost and improve the efficiency of power electronics, the agency said.
SWITCHES is short for “Strategies for Wide-Bandgap, Inexpensive Transistors for Controlling High-Efficiency Systems,” ARPA-E said.
In modern-energy infrastructure, power electronics are based on “decades-old” technology and rely on “expensive, bulky, and failure-prone” components, the agency said.
To address these “critical inefficiencies,” SWITCHES pursues lower-cost possibilities, according to ARPA-E.
Authorized in 2007 and first funded in 2009, ARPA-E invests in “high-potential, high-impact” energy technologies that are “too early” for private-sector investment, the agency said.
Monolith Semiconductor’s website lists its leadership team as including Sujit Banerjee, CEO; Kevin Matocha, president; Larry Rowland, chief strategy officer; and Kiran Chatty, vice president of product development.
Chatty’s biographical information also indicates he co-founded Monolith in 2013, the website says.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
