ABB adds silicon-carbide conversion through Advantics deal

ABB has agreed to acquire French power-conversion specialist Advantics, adding silicon-carbide hardware, firmware, and software to its expanding direct-current systems portfolio.

Financial terms have not been disclosed, while completion is expected during the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to customary conditions. Advantics will become part of ABB’s Electrification business once the transaction closes.

Based in Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France, Advantics develops compact power-conversion systems using silicon-carbide semiconductor technology. Its products combine converter hardware with embedded controls, firmware, and software rather than treating the switching module as an isolated component.

Converter modules developed by the company can reach efficiencies of up to 99%, depending on operating conditions and system configuration. ABB plans to deploy the technology across industrial microgrids, power generation, battery storage, data centres, and electric-vehicle infrastructure.

The acquisition complements ABB’s existing equipment for DC protection, distribution, control, and energy management. Bringing power conversion into the same portfolio creates a more complete route from source or storage through protection and distribution to the final load.

Many technologies driving new electricity demand already operate internally on direct current. Solar modules generate DC, batteries store it, electronic loads consume it, and high-power chargers convert electricity before supplying vehicle batteries, while conventional AC architectures introduce additional conversion stages between those elements.

Silicon carbide raises conversion density

As a wide-bandgap semiconductor material, silicon carbide can operate at higher switching frequencies, temperatures, and voltages than conventional silicon devices when incorporated into a suitable design. Higher switching frequencies can reduce the size of magnetic components and filters, while lower switching and conduction losses can improve efficiency and power density.

Those characteristics are particularly valuable where equipment space, cooling capacity, and continuous utilisation are constrained. Data centres, charging hubs, storage plants, ships, industrial facilities, and modular microgrids can all place substantial power through comparatively compact electrical rooms or enclosures.

Efficiency nevertheless depends on the completed converter rather than the semiconductor alone. Gate driving, magnetics, busbars, capacitors, switching strategy, cooling, partial-load behaviour, protection, and control software determine the losses and reliability of the final product.

ABB has already placed silicon carbide at the centre of its OM X-Series megawatt charging architecture, which uses a site-level DC bus and liquid-cooled power modules to distribute capacity across high-duty fleet and corridor-charging installations.

The Advantics acquisition extends the same technology into a wider group of applications. A DC-coupled microgrid can connect solar generation, batteries, charging equipment, and electronic loads while reducing selected conversion stages, although the result depends on voltage architecture, cable distances, protection design, load behaviour, and the amount of legacy AC equipment that remains connected.

Protection remains one of the principal engineering constraints. Alternating current naturally crosses zero during every cycle, assisting interruption, whereas DC faults do not provide the same natural current zero and can be fed rapidly by batteries and charged capacitors.

Isolation, fault detection, current limitation, selectivity, arc control, and switching speed therefore require equipment developed specifically for the DC environment. Protection devices must operate quickly enough to contain faults without disconnecting unaffected sections of the installation unnecessarily.

Software adds another layer of system responsibility. Modern converters coordinate operating modes, voltage regulation, power sharing, thermal limits, fault response, communications, and remote updates, often while responding to a site energy-management system, grid constraint, tariff signal, or battery-management instruction.

Integrating hardware and software through acquisition may shorten product-development cycles, but it also concentrates lifecycle obligations. Firmware validation, cybersecurity, component obsolescence, diagnostics, and long-term support become part of the electrical asset rather than separate digital services.

Thermal management will remain critical even at very high efficiency. A converter processing several megawatts can still produce substantial heat from a small percentage of losses, and higher power density places that heat within a smaller enclosure.

Data-centre and charging applications also require high availability, making redundancy, maintainability, and controlled degradation as important as peak efficiency. A module that performs exceptionally under laboratory conditions must still tolerate variable loads, grid disturbances, dust, temperature changes, and repeated switching over many years.

Direct-current distribution is unlikely to replace alternating current universally because existing networks, motors, transformers, protection practices, standards, workforce knowledge, and installed equipment all favour continued AC use. Growth is more likely within defined systems where generation, storage, and consumption are already predominantly DC and where conversion losses or equipment space carry a measurable cost.

Advantics will enter a portfolio capable of addressing the wider system around those installations, from conversion and control to distribution and protection. Commercial success will depend on turning high-efficiency modules into standardised, maintainable products that operate reliably outside specialist demonstration projects.