US Patent Issued to Hitachi Astemo on Dec. 16 for "Semiconductor device, power module, inverter device, and electric vehicle" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,501,714, issued on Dec. 16, was assigned to Hitachi Astemo Ltd. (Hitachinaka, Japan).

"Semiconductor device, power module, inverter device, and electric vehicle" was invented by Takahiro Araki (Tokyo), Akira Mima (Tokyo) and Noriyuki Maekawa (Hitachinaka, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "There has been a problem that when a value of a current flowing through a thermistor increases, a voltage drop generated in the thermistor increases, and variations occur in a clamp voltage. A semiconductor device includes: a switching element that is on-off controlled; and a surge voltage protection circuit connected between a positive electrode sid...