Jayant Baliga developed the equation for a wide bandgap semi-conductor at General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), and it was the second big discovery he made there, after first developing a new kind of transistor. After developing that formula, his next stop was a professorship at N.C. State.

“At N.C. State, we had the world’s leading program on widegap band materials and I wanted to work with a faculty developing these materials, so I set up a power semiconductor research center,” he explains.

That’s where that nifty new formula came in, a formula he used to make the first wide bandgap semiconductors in the early 90s.

“Since then, there has been tremendous interest around the globe, more than a dozen companies,” he says.

The Wide bandgap semi-conductor uses 90% less energy than other semi-conductors and handles higher temperatures.

Go Wolfpack!

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/2014/01/heres-the-reason-why-obama-chose-nc.html?ana=e_du_pap&s=article_du&ed=2014-01-17