New Industry Products

Reflowable Thermal Switch Protects Against Thermal Runaway

April 03, 2018 by Paul Shepard

Schurter has introduced a new Reflowable Thermal Switch (RTS), a particularly compact device for thermal protection. Due to their inherent self-reinforcing heat-producing behavior, power semiconductors such as MOSFETs, ICs, IGBTs, TRIACs, SCRs, etc. can overheat and lead to thermal runaway.

The RTS is designed to protect against such overheating, reliably interrupting the circuit precisely at a pre-defined temperature. This new RTS can be mounted using conventional reflow soldering techniques with temperature profiles up to 260 degrees Celsius.

After the solder process, the RTS is mechanically activated by depressing the top into place, arming the RTS to trip at 210 degrees Celsius. It can be performed manually or automatically in the case of several devices being activated at once.

In contrast to devices using electrical activation, with an additional contact, the status of the RTS is clearly and immediately visible to the installer. The need for an additional contact is also eliminated.

The RTS sustains operating currents up to 100A at rated voltages of up to 60Vdc in a remarkable compact package measuring 6.6 x 8.8 mm in size. It meets the high reliability requirements of AEC-Q200 and MIL-STD. Customer-specific versions are available.

Added features include integrated shunt or overcurrent protection, resulting in less space consumed on the printed circuit board.