Power semiconductors first appeared in the 1950s. In 1956, Bell Laboratories in the United States invented thyristors and they were widely used in the 1960s. After 1980, various new power thyristors, unipolar MOSFETs, and bipolar MOSFETs were gradually developed; in the 1990s IGBTs were developed, and power modules and integrated power devices gradually appeared thereafter.

At present, power devices are mainly based on Si (silicon) materials, including SOI high-voltage integrated circuits. With the development of third-generation semiconductors, wide-gap semiconductor materials represented by SiC and GaN have begun to become emerging materials for power semiconductors.