Power semiconductor device education: Which topics and what depth?

Power electronics is a significant enabling technology in many areas of electrical engineering and the introduction of wide bandgap power devices utilizing silicon carbide and gallium nitride will make it even more important and pervasive in the future. In developing the power electronics workforce going forward, two major questions arise concerning power semiconductor devices. First what device topics should be covered and second what should be the depth of the topical coverage? One example discussed in the paper are the power semiconductor device topics are taught at the undergraduate and graduate level at the University of Minnesota and to what depth. The topical details of a graduate level device physics and device design course at the graduate level are also considered.