Wide-Bandgap Semis

March 2021
The Industry's Smallest 100W GaN Charger Reference Design
GaN Systems announced the release of the industry’s smallest 100W dual USB-C intelligent PD GaN charger. This turnkey reference design achieves the highest power density of any 100W charger on the market while being the smartest. The charger can balance and appropriately power a variety of plugged-in device po
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Date:
03/22/2021
AEC-Q101 Qualified 700 and 1200V SiC Schottky Barrier Diode
The devices provide Electric Vehicle (EV) system designers with solutions that meet stringent automotive quality standards across a wide range of voltage, current and package options. For EV power designers who need to increase system efficiency while maintaining high quality, Microchip’s AEC-Q101-qualifi
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Date:
03/14/2021
Compact low on-resistance MOSFET devices
Leveraging the company’s advanced power semiconductor process expertise and cutting-edge IP, this 12V-rated common-drain device exhibits numerous industry-leading operational performance parameters. The SSM6N951L is specifically intended for inclusion in the battery protection circuitry incorporated into the Li-I
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Date:
03/14/2021
Infineon Expands  Supply Base  for Silicon Carbide
The contract has an initial term of five years. With this supply contract, the German semiconductor manufacturer adds a further element to secure its growing base material demand in this area. SiC is the basis for power semiconductors that are particularly efficient, robust, and cost-effective at the system le
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Date:
03/14/2021
eBook showcases high-performance power conversion components
In Achieving Enhanced Performance and Reliability, Bourns and Mouser offer a series of technical articles designed to help readers choose the right components for specific power applications, including multiple related to high-voltage energy storage. The growing importance and prevalence of technologies such as electric veh
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Date:
03/14/2021
No More Pitfalls in GaN Driving

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Figure 1: Switching waveforms using a moderate switching speed of ca. 5-10ns and a fast switching speed of ca. 1-2ns for 48V to 3.3V conversion at 300kHz

Since the introduction of the first gallium nitride (GaN) transistors over ten years ago, their advantages in power electronics over silicon MOSFETs have become well-known. Indeed, the material properties of GaN offer lower parasitic capacitances for a given on-resistance, inherent fast switching transients, la
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Date:
03/03/2021
Modeling Common Topologies with Silicon Carbide MOSFETs

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Figure 1: Ideal double-pulse test simulation switching loss results are about 45% lower than those in the datasheet for the DUT, U2

Beyond the basic design principles common between SiC and Si, and the need to keep in mind SiC’s different characteristics, capabilities and advantages, engineers must model and simulate to ensure they will meet their design goals. As with Si, SiC now has optimized tools and models available from various s
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Date:
03/03/2021
Gallium Nitride: Catalyst for the Next Generation of Power

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Figure 1: Smartphone screen-size and battery capacity has increased over 3x in 10 years. As new platforms have been released with faster charging rates, OEMs have moved to adopt gallium nitride (GaN) chargers for both accessory and ‘in-box’ options. Source: GSMArena, Navitas as of January 2021

Smartphone screens, batteries and increased 5G features with intensified data processing and transmission rates and volumes have put a spotlight on charging speeds and the size, weight and cost of leading-edge travel adapters. At the same time, the introduction of a single, flexible charging platform (hardware an
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Date:
03/03/2021
Toshiba launches 1200V Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFET
These applications include 400V AC input AC-DC power supplies, Photovoltaic (PV) inverters and bi-directional DC-DC converters for uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). The new TW070J120B power MOSFET is based upon SiC, a new wide bandgap material that allows devices to deliver high voltage resistance, high-sp
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Date:
03/03/2021
Harwin opens £3.8m smart manufacturing facility
Providing an additional 1,200m² of factory floor, the new facility is enabling the company to quickly and significantly scale up production of its award-winning high reliability (Hi-Rel) connectors to meet market requirements. The total investment into the new facility is £3.8m; £1m of this brings in st
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Date:
03/03/2021
80V bidirectional buck-boost and dual-phase buck DC/DC controllers
The ISL81801 buck-boost controller acts like a “UPS on a chip” by enabling bidirectional current flow (forward or reverse) using constant-voltage and constant-current regulation. This allows a battery or supercapacitor to be charged and discharged using a single controller and power path. The ISL81801’s comb
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Date:
03/03/2021
View Point: The Right Timing
Welcome to the March edition of PSD Europe. It’s starting to feel a lot like spring here in Scotland. With the COVID 19 vaccine being more widely distributed, the sun out, and plans in place to ease the lockdown that we have been on for several months, there is a general feeling of optimism around. The industry al
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Date:
03/03/2021
High-voltage analog multiplexers for signal distribution
The high voltage capability of the devices will support industrial IoT (IIoT) applications using multiple sensors, including factory automation and process control, battery monitoring systems, and test and measurement equipment.   The PS508 and PS509 provide single-ended or differential configurati
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Date:
03/02/2021
Würth Elektronik extends WE-MAPI power inductor range
They are characterized by a high saturation current, high permeability, and low resistance. The most important area of applications for the WE-MAPI range are high-performance DC/DC converters with a high efficiency for switching frequencies of up to 20 MHz. New additions to this range are the 5020 and 5030 sizes and the
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Date:
03/02/2021
Mouser adds Analog Devices’ AD567xR DACs
The AD567xR devices are low-power, 12-bit and 16-bit buffered voltage output DACs, operating from a single 2.7 V to 5.5 V supply voltage range. Featuring wide operating ranges and high relative accuracy, the 16-channel DACs are ideal for a range of applications, including industrial automation, optical transce
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Date:
03/02/2021
Mouser adds ultra-compact TDK FS1406 µPOL DC-DC power modules
Offering 15 W of output power in a minuscule 3.3 mm × 3.3 mm × 1.5 mm package, the highly compact point-of-load modules support a range of high-performance applications, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data, 5G cells, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The TDK FS1406 µPOL DC-
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Date:
03/02/2021
MAX25430 100W USB PD buck-boost controller
As the industry’s most integrated solution, the MAX25430 can reduce design size up to 40 percent compared to competitive solutions and offer the industry’s lowest cost for increasing the number of USB PD ports in vehicles. Automotive multimedia hubs, including rear-seat entertainment modules and head-un
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Date:
03/02/2021
How Wide-Bandgap Technology Became Real
We are now moving up the slope of enlightenment onto the plateau of productivity with wide bandgap semiconductor devices, namely silicon carbide and gallium nitride. WBG devices that complement silicon devices are now readily available in products, especially at higher voltages, and designers are pleased to us
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Date:
03/01/2021
Redefining Power Conversion with Gallium Nitride ICs

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Figure 1: Performance comparison of GaN discrete (blue line) and GaN monolithich half bridge (green line) in a 12 V input, 12 V output buck converter operating at 1 MHz.

Beyond just performance and cost improvements, the most significant opportunity for GaN technology to impact the power conversion market comes from the intrinsic ability to integrate multiple devices on the same substrate. This capability will allow monolithic power systems to be designed on a single chip in a
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Date:
03/01/2021
How to Choose GaN or SiC Devices for High Voltage Switching

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Figure 1: Appropriate operating regimes for various devices types

Every engineer wants a perfect switch that flips between On and Off states instantaneously and which doesn’t suffer losses in either state. To achieve the lowest possible losses when switching between the two states relies on the switch having a number of characteristics. It needs to have an infinite breakdown vo
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Date:
03/01/2021
Silver Sintering Improves Thermal Conductivity
The die area of power transistors is effectively dictated by their power rating. For a given thermal dissipation, smaller just means higher junction temperatures and potential reduction in reliability, especially with power cycling. For that reason, minimizing the thermal resistance from die to case and ambient is
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Date:
03/01/2021
All the World's a Stage ... for Wide-Bandgap Semiconductors
We’ve passed the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 outbreak, and while vaccines slowly disperse around the globe, it’s business as kinda-sorta-usual in power electronics. And this month, we’ve landed on one of our favorite topics – wide-bandgap semiconductors. It used to be that I couldn’t turn my h
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Date:
03/01/2021