Semiconductor packaging and integrations advances were featured during the opening day of this year’s PCIM Europe. Semikron, Fairchild Semiconductor and Tyco Electronics highlighted their latest advances at a series of press conferences throughout the day.
Semikron announced a line of solder-free IGBT modules, Tyco offered its latest 100A H-bridge modules and Fairchild focused on their Green FPS e-Series of Fairchild Power Switch products that provide high energy efficiency in 25W and lower power supply designs.
Semikron started the day announcing a solder-free IGBT module for 22 kW – 150kW train drive converters in electric and hybrid vehicles. SKiM® has a five times higher temperature cycling capability compared to soldered modules. The solder-free pressure system and an internal laminated bus bar cause a homogeneous current distribution.
Every IGBT and diode chip has its own connection to the main terminal. The result is a low module resistance of RCC’+EE’ ≤ 0.3 mΩ compared to soldered modules with approximately 1.1 mΩ. The connection to the driver board is also solder-free with springs for high temperature cycling and fast solder-free mounting.
The chips are not soldered but sintered to achieve the high power cycling capability. The sinter joint is a thin silver layer that has a superior thermal resistance than a soldered joint and due to the high melting point of silver no joining fatigue leading to an increased service life.
Tyco Electronics introduced two new modules; the fastPACK 0 H 2nd gen; a new family of fast switching H-bridge modules in the flow 0 package and the 3rd generation of its biggest PIM Module, the flowPIM 2 3rd gen.
The new 3rd gen devices include rectifier, brake chopper, inverter and mechanically isolated NTC with improved pinout. This Module is equipped with IGBT4 technology in order to improve the EMC behaviour and can support currents up to 100A at 600V/ 1200V.
With the fast PACK 0 H 2nd gen family, Tyco has addressed the needs of higher power fast switching applications, such as welding, switch mode power supply and solar energy conversion, requiring frequencies of up to 250 kHz.
The entire family consists of 15 different versions at 600V and 8 different versions at 1200V. Combining the different diode types, substrates and an optional dc link capacitor, the family provides efficient solutions for a variety of applications within this power range and frequency.
Addressing the needs of low-power systems up to 25W, Fairchild Semiconductor added the Green FPS e-Series, a new family of Fairchild Power Switch (FPS™) products that provide efficient operation and system reliability in DVD player, set top box, LCD monitor and similar devices.
Based on Fairchild’s proprietary valley switching technique, the Green FPS products raise power conversion efficiency by 1% and reduce EMI up to 5dB compared to conventional hard-switch converter topologies. By employing an advanced control technique, the Green FPS e-Series products allow power converters to operate with narrow frequency variation while maintaining valley switching operation.
Valley switching operation enables the MOSFET to turn on with minimum drain voltage and offers inherent frequency modulation resulting in a dramatic reduction in EMI noise up to 5 dB compared to conventional hard-switch converters. This valley switching operation also enables these converters to perform soft switching, therefore increasing power conversion efficiency by 1% while drastically reducing heat generation.
These highly integrated FPS devices combine the functionality of a fully avalanche rated SenseFET, a current mode pulse width modulation (PWM) IC and various protection functions, simplifying design and improving system reliability. Utilizing advanced burst mode operation, the Green FPS e-Series devices meet stand-by power regulations by reducing standby power consumption to below 0.2W at no load conditions (below 1W at 0.5W load).
