Recent Case Law on External Competences of the European Union: How Member States can embrace their own Treaty. EPIN Working Paper No. 43 / January 2017

The challenges facing Europe today cannot be addressed without putting into practice one of the main objectives pursued by member states when concluding the Treaty of Lisbon, argues the author of this paper; that objective being that the Union should be capable of acting as a strong and united player on the international scene, rather than as a more or less effective coordination platform for 28 international policies. Brexit and the new administration in Washington only reinforce this finding. To ensure that the Union can play this role, member states must, however, accept that the Union effectively exercises the competences that have been attributed to it. This EPIN working paper offers a systematic analysis of the consequences that should be drawn from recent case law. Mostly, it seeks to identify possible avenues to allow legal disputes to be overcome, with a view to achieving the objectives that were pursued through the Treaty of Lisbon; in effect allowing member states to embrace their own Treaty. The author seeks to show that the conclusion of agreements by the Union alone (without ‘mixity’) neither leads to ‘uncontrolled power creep by Brussels’, nor to the disappearance of member states from the international scene

Vertical breakdown of GaN on Si due to V-pits

Gallium nitride on silicon (GaN/Si) is an important technological approach for power electronic devices exhibiting superior performance compared to devices based on a pure silicon technology. However, the material defect density in GaN/Si is high, and identification of critical defects limiting device reliability is still only partially accomplished because of experimental difficulties. In this work, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, and cathodoluminescence were employed to investigate commonly occurring epitaxial overgrown V-pits and inhomogeneous incorporation of oxygen and carbon across layer stacking in the vertical direction. These experiments identified V-pits as regions with higher n-type carrier concentrations and paths for vertical leakage through the buffer, as directly probed by conductive atomic force microscopy. The deleterious effect of V-pits on device performance is demonstrated by evaluating test devices fabricated on two wafers with significantly diverse density of buried V-pits induced by varying growth conditions of the aluminum nitride nucleation layer. A clear correlation between observed vertical breakdown and density of V-pits within the C-doped GaN layer below the device structures is obtained. Back-gating transient measurements also show that the dynamic device behavior is affected by the V-pit density in terms of the detrapping time constants.Gallium nitride on silicon (GaN/Si) is an important technological approach for power electronic devices exhibiting superior performance compared to devices based on a pure silicon technology. However, the material defect density in GaN/Si is high, and identification of critical defects limiting device reliability is still only partially accomplished because of experimental difficulties. In this work, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, and cathodoluminescence were employed to investigate commonly occurring epitaxial overgrown V-pits and inhomogeneous incorporation of oxygen and carbon across layer stacking in the vertical direction. These experiments identified V-pits as regions with higher n-type carrier concentrations and paths for vertical leakage through the buffer, as directly probed by conductive atomic force microscopy. The deleterious effect of V-pits on device performance is demonstrated by evaluating test devices fabricated on two wafers with s..

Low inductance 2.5kV packaging technology for SiC switches

The switching speed of power semiconductors has reached levels where conventional semiconductors packages limit the achievable performance due to relatively high parasitic inductance and capacitance. This paper presents a novel packaging structure which employs stacked substrate and flexible printed circuit board (PCB) to obtain very low parasitic inductance and hence feature high switching speed SiC power devices. A half-bridge module aimed at blocking voltage up to 2.5kV has been designed to ac¬commodate 8 SiC JFETs and 4 SiC diodes. Electromagnetic simulation results reveal extremely low in¬ductance values of the major loops. Due to delay delivery of those custom ordered substrate and PCB, the prototyping samples of the designed module have yet been constructed. The up to date results including experimental construction, electrical and thermal performance of the samples will be presented at the conference

Recommended Methods to Study Resistive Switching Devices

Resistive switching (RS) is an interesting property shown by some materials systems that, especially during the last decade, has gained a lot of interest for the fabrication of electronic devices, with electronic nonvolatile memories being those that have received the most attention. The presence and quality of the RS phenomenon in a materials system can be studied using different prototype cells, performing different experiments, displaying different figures of merit, and developing different computational analyses. Therefore, the real usefulness and impact of the findings presented in each study for the RS technology will be also different. This manuscript describes the most recommendable methodologies for the fabrication, characterization, and simulation of RS devices, as well as the proper methods to display the data obtained. The idea is to help the scientific community to evaluate the real usefulness and impact of an RS study for the development of RS technology. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinhei

Lateral Power Transistors in Integrated Circuits

The book summarizes and compares recent advancements in the development of novel lateral power transistors (LDMOS devices) for integrated circuits in power electronic applications. In its first part, the book motivates the necessity for lateral power transistors by a top-down approach: First, it presents typical energy conversion applications in modern industrial, automotive and consumer electronics. Next, it introduces common circuit topologies suitable for these applications, and discusses the feasibility for monolithic integration. Finally, the combination of power and logic functionality on a single chip is motivated and the requirements and limitations for the power semiconductor devices are deduced. The second part describes the evolution of lateral power transistors over the past decades from the simple pin-type concept to double-acting RESURF topologies. It describes the principle of operation for these LDMOS devices and discusses limitations of lateral power devices. Moreover, figures-of-merit are presented which can be used to evaluate the performance of the novel lateral power transistors described in this book with respect to the LDMOS devices. In the last part, [..] the fundamental physical concepts including charge compensation and trench gate topologies are discussed. Also, the status of research in LDMOS devices on silicon carbide is presented. Advantages and drawbacks for each of these integration approaches are summarized, and the feasibility with respect to power electronic applications is evaluated

'Comme une lettre à la poste' : Rechtliche und praktische Aspekte der Rechtsnachfolge von der Europäischen Gemeinschaft zur Europäischen Union

Mit dem am 1. Dezember 2009 in Kraft getretenen Vertrag von Lissabon wurde in Art 1 Abs 3 Satz 2 festgelegt: „Die Union tritt an die Stelle der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, deren Rechtsnachfolgerin sie ist.“ Nach dieser Bestimmung hat somit die Europäische Gemeinschaft (EG) mit diesem Datum aufgehört zu existieren und ist in der Europäischen Union (EU, Union) aufgegangen

Economic and environmental comparison of logistic halls built with glue laminated timber- and steel frame

Introduktion – Byggbranschen idag står för en betydande andel av jordensväxthusgasutsläpp och behovet för att minska dessa är stora. Att investera merklimatsmart i nybyggnation ökar och trä har blivit till ett alltmer populärt byggmaterialnär det kommer till flerbostadshus, men logistikhallar domineras fortfarande av stål.Studiens mål är att undersöka skillnaderna i kostnader och utsläpp av växthusgasermellan limträ- och stålstommar för logistikhallar. Detta för att undersöka om trä är ettekonomiskt rimligt och mer miljöeffektivt stommaterial vid byggnation avlogistikhallar än en stålstomme. Metod – Metoden som valts till studien är en fallstudie då den kommer omfatta bådeen teoretisk undersökning, granskning av kvantitativa data från ett tidigare projekt samtuppskatta storleken på en trästommes tvärsnitt genom simulering i endimensioneringsmjukvara. Kostnad och miljöpåverkan för en stål- och limträstommekommer att tas fram för att sedan kunna utföra en jämförande analys av de tvåstommaterialen. Resultat – Stommarna skiljer sig procentuellt sätt inte så mycket i pris menlimträstommen orsakar betydligt mindre växthusgasutsläpp jämfört med stålstommen.Kostnaden mellan stål- och trästommen skiljde sig knappt utifrån material- ochmontagekostnaderna. Stålstommen står för nästan sju gånger mer växthusgasutsläpp änlimträstommen under produktionsstadiet. I transportskedet har limträ en längretransportsträcka än stål i denna studie vilket är huvudorsaken till att limträstommenspåverkan på miljön är större än stålstommen i detta skede. Monteringsskedet harstålstommen en större miljöpåverkan än trästommen. Utifrån hela stommen under helabygg- och produktionsstadiet hade stålstommen fyra gånger mer i utsläpp änlimträstommen. Analys – Om priset på stommen är det huvudsakliga intresset hos byggherren bör inteen stålstomme antas vara det billigare alternativet. Denna studie har största spännvidderav balkar på 24 meter och vid större spännvidder kan förutsättningarna för val avstommaterial se annorlunda ut. Limträ är väl lämpat som stommaterial om ambitionenär att bygga med små mängder växthusgasutsläpp. Diskussion – Byggbranschen har en viktig roll i arbetet med att minskakoldioxidutsläppen och uppnå klimatmålen. Trots att trästommen som analyserats inteär optimalt utformad påvisar ändå studien stora miljömässiga fördelar att användalimträ som stommaterial i logistikhallar utan några större skillnader i kostnad. Introduction – The construction industry today accounts for a significant portion ofthe Earth's greenhouse gas emissions, and the need to reduce these emissions issubstantial. Investing more climate-smartly in new construction is increasing, and woodhas become an increasingly popular building material, especially for multi-familyhouses. However, logistic warehouses are still predominantly dominated by steel. Theaim of this study is to investigate the differences in costs and greenhouse gas emissionsbetween glulam timber and steel frames for logistic warehouses. This is done toexamine whether wood is an economically viable and environmentally more efficientstructural material for constructing logistic warehouses compared to a steel frame. Method – The chosen method for the study is a case study, as it will encompass both atheoretical examination, a review of quantitative data from a previous project, and anestimation of the cross-sectional size of a timber frame through simulation in astructural design software. The cost and environmental impact of a steel and glulamtimber frame will be determined in order to conduct a comparative analysis of the twostructural materials. Results – The frames do not differ significantly in terms of price, but the glulam timberframe results in significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to the steelframe. The cost difference between steel and timber frames was minimal based onmaterial and assembly costs. The steel frame generates almost seven times moregreenhouse gas emissions than the glulam timber frame during the production stage. Inthe transportation phase, laminated timber has a longer transportation distance then steelin this study, which is the main reason for the greater environmental impact of thelaminated timber frame compared to the steel frame at this stage. During the assemblyphase, the steel frame has a larger environmental impact than the timber frame. Acrossthe entire frame during the entire construction and production stages, the steel framehas four times more emissions than the glulam timber frame. Analysis – If the cost of the frame is the primary concern for the builder, a steel frameshould not be assumed to be the cheaper alternative. This study considers the widestspan of beams at 24 meters, and for larger spans, the conditions for choosing structuralmaterials might differ. Glulam timber is well-suited as a structural material if the goalis to build with minimal greenhouse gas emissions. Discussion – The construction industry plays a crucial role in reducing carbon dioxideemissions and achieving climate goals. Despite the fact that the analyzed timber framemight not be optimally designed, the study still demonstrates significant environmentaladvantages in using glulam timber as a structural material in logistic warehouses, withno major differences in cost