Electronics in Motion and Conversion April 2008

ISSN: 1863-5598
Electronics in Motion and Conversion
ZKZ 64717
04-08
April 2008
Maximize energy efficiency
in every DC-DC design.
Here is a selection of our integrated
DC-DC solutions:
Product
Part Numbers*
Features
Integrated Switching
Regulators (Controller +
Drivers + MOSFETs)
FAN2106
FAN5350
• Up to 95% efficiency
• Small, ultra-thin package (MLP and CSP)
Power Controllers
(Controller + Drivers)
FAN6520
• Drives N-Channel MOSFETs in a synchronous
buck topology
• Output voltage range as low as 0.8V to VIN
Power Drivers (FET plus Driver FDMF8704
Multi-Chip Module)
FDMF6700
• >85% efficiency
• Optimal synchronous buck power stage
DrMOS solutions
• Unique MLP 6ⴛ6 package
Integrated MOSFETs (multiple
MOSFETs in one package)
• 50% board space savings versus
discrete solution
• Ease of layout in PCB design
• Optimized matching and sizing of MOSFETs
(>92% efficiency)
• MLP 5ⴛ6 package
FDMS9600
FDMS9620
Choose your DC-DC functions,
performance, size and energy savings
No one offers more efficient DC-DC options than
Fairchild. We combine perfectly matched power analog
and discrete components with advanced packaging and
power expertise for the industry's leading energy-saving
portfolio. You can choose the optimum combination of
controller, drivers and MOSFETs in a wide range of
performance and size specifications.
Whatever your system performance and time-to-market
needs may be, Fairchild has your ideal DC-DC solutions.
*These products represent a small sampling of Fairchild’s DC-DC portfolio.
Learn more about all of our DC-DC solutions—including
PWM controllers, voltage regulators and MOSFETs—at
www.fairchildsemi.com/dcdc.
Bodo´s Power
CONTENTS
Viewpoint
Blue Efficiency the Next Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-11
Company News
German President Visits SEMIKRON, Nuremberg . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Product of the Month
Sixfold 24V Line Driver with Energy Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Blue Product of the Month
Battery Fuel Gauge Family target Smart Phones
and Mobile Internet Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Guest Editorial
Energy Effciency and the More-Electric-World
By Thomas Harder,
ECPE European Center for Power Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Market
Electronics Industry Digest
By Aubrey Dunford, Europartners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Market
APEC Showcases Trends in Power
By Linnea Brush, Senior Research Analyst, Darnell Group . . . 22-23
Cover Story
Prime(PACK) Time for SCALE-2
By Sascha Pawel, Jan Thalheim, Olivier Garcia and Michael
Reckhard, CT-Concept Technologie AG, Switzerland . . . . . . . . 24-27
Power Modules
Electric Power Steering Modules
By Dr. Rüdiger Bredtmann, Klaus Olesen, Dr. Frank Osterwald,
Danfoss Silicon Power GmbH, Schleswig, Germany
and Prof. Dr. Ronald Eisele, University of Applied Sciences,
Kiel, Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-37
Design & Simulation
Designing Power with Ease using Webench
By Frederik Dostal at National Semiconductor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38-39
Design & Simulation
From Idea to Design in Less than 30 Minutes
By Aranzazu Diaz-Valdivieso and Dr. Gerald Deboy,
Infineon Technologies AG and Dr. Uwe Knorr,
Transim Technology Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40-41
Test & Measurement
Unique Tactile Pressure Indicating Sensor Film Helps Capacitor
Manufacturer Hold Tighter Product Tolerances
By Arlene Gleicher, Sensor Products and David Bryan,
SB Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42-43
Thermal Management
Passive Heatsinks Designed to Out- Perform Active Solutions
By Andreas Engelhardt, Research Engineer, Thermacore Europe
Ltd., Ashington, UK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44-45
New Products@APEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46-49
New Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50-56
Power Supply
Platform Power Design for Future Satellite Savings
By Tiva Bussarakons, International Rectifier,
Aerospace and Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28-31
MAKING MODERN LIVING POSSIBLE
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*(#5TBOE.04'&5TGSPNXPSMEDMBTTNBOVGBDUVSFSTv-PXBOEIJHIWPMUBHF
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We design and manufacture to your needs.
Danfoss Silicon Power GmbH t)FJOSJDI)FSU[4USB•Ft%4DIMFTXJH (FSNBOZt5FMt 'BY
&NBJMETQJOGP!EBOGPTTDPNtIUUQTJMJDPOQPXFSEBOGPTTDPN
Bodo´s Power
The Gallery
2
April 2008
www.bodospower.com
Power Modules
Positioning Products
Electronic
Manufacturing Services
The Power to Move Ahead
Team up with us!
www.vincotech.com
VIEWPOINT
Bodo´s Power
A Media
Katzbek 17a
D-24235 Laboe, Germany
Phone: +49 4343 42 17 90
Fax:
+49 4343 42 17 89
[email protected]
www.bodospower.com
Publishing Editor
Bodo Arlt, Dipl.-Ing.
[email protected]
Creative Direction & Production
Repro Studio Peschke
[email protected]
Free Subscription to qualified readers
Bodo´s Power magazine
is available for the following
subscription charges:
Annual charge (12 issues) is 150 €
world wide
Single issue is 18 €
[email protected]
circulation
printrun
20000
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A Media and Bodos Power magazine
assume and hereby disclaim any
liability to any person for any loss or
damage by errors or omissions in the
material contained herein regardless of
whether such errors result from
negligence accident or any other cause
whatsoever.
Events
Battery Developer Forum
April 9-10
http://batteryuniversity.eu
SENSOR+TEST 2008
Nuremberg
May 6-8
http://www.sensor-test.de
PCIM Europe 2008
Nuremberg
May 27-29
http://www.mesago.de
SMT/Hybrid 2008
Nuremberg June 3-5
http://www.mesago.de
EPE – PEMC 2008
Poznan – Poland
September 1-3
http://epe-pemc2008.put.poznan.pl
4
April 2008
Blue Efficiency at
the Next Level
Notice my new red sox! My baseball cap is
in response to a friends request to change
from the New York Yankees to the Boston
Red Sox. Having established the local language program, I will now do an Individual
Baseball program. Anybody in the world can
send me a baseball cap and I will wear it for
one month here in the viewpoint picture. But
you must donate to a charity organization to
have your cap on my head. There will be a
recognition Gallery of the people who support the program.
We are in the final race to get ready for
PCIM Europe in Nuremberg. PCIM Nuremberg is a European event that attracts power
electronics engineers from all over the world
to contribute to the conference andcompanies to exhibit at their booths. . Having been
a member of the advisory board for two
decades now, I have seen continuous
progress – a good feeling. We should always
remember our predecessors who set the
stage for the quality of the show and conference today. Listening to their wisdom and
experience is a talent that helps sharpen our
view of the right trends in industry. Just to
name a few: Miron Miller, Gert Zieroth, Jan
Marie Peter – along with the many others
who have worked hard to establish PCIM
Europe over the last three decades. It is
good to see them as guests, still contributing.
We are all growing older and perhaps travel
is not always a pleasure, therefore my publication keeps up with the important developments to serve everyone who cannot be at
all the shows in the world. This issue will
brief you with a few innovations seen last
month at the APEC in Austin, Texas.
In the new local language program just
established, Bodo’s Power will serve many
languages. Submitted articles can be contributed in several languages, in addition to
English. The printed magazine will have a
note at the end of each article for the available languages. The local language article
will be found by downloading the .pdf of the
full magazine from the website,
www.bodospower.com.
March was the first issue that has the Semikron Interview in four languages besides
English. All extra languages will be attached
at the end of the .pdf for the corresponding
month and available after an update of the
website .pdf done by the second week.
The PCIM Europe now begin in just 56 days
– as my magazine is always delivered on
time, you can countdown the days from April
1st to the beginning of the show.
This year’s podium discussion at PCIM will
focus on Blue Efficiency. I am looking forward to seeing you at the podium on
Wednesday, May 28th between 12:20 and
13:20. Something special will surprise the
audience at the end of the open discussion.
Only the seated people at the podium will
benefit. Are you are dying to know now?
Come and get your surprise!
My Green Power Tip for this month is:
Have your cat lick the dishes and then wash
them in a dish washing machine. You will
save water and soap and your time doing it
by hand. Modern electronics are making
dishwashers very efficient.
See you at PCIM at my Booth, 12-457
Best Regards
Bodo Arlt
www.bodospower.com
To help your innovation
we make ourselves small.
Minisens, FHS Current transducer
Minisens is taking miniaturization to the next level as it is a fully fledged current
transducer for isolated current measurement including magnetic concentrators
in an IC SO8 size. This allows you to include all the functionalities you are looking for into the space that you have available.
• Non-contact current measurement
with no insertion loss
• Isolation provider
• Attractive price
• Flexible design allows a wide
range of current measurement
from 2-70 ARMS
• +5V power supply
www.lem.com
• Access to voltage reference
• Ratiometric or fixed gain and offset
• Standby mode pin
• Dedicated additional fast output for
short circuit detection
• High performance gain and offset
thermal drifts
At the heart of power electronics.
Visit us at
PCIM,
Hall 12,
Stand 402
NEWS
Agreement for Lithium Phosphate Battery Packs
Valence Technology, Inc announced it has
entered into a contract with The Tanfield
Group Plc to manufacture and supply safe,
Lithium Phosphate energy storage systems
to power zero emission, all-electric commercial delivery vehicles. The Valence battery
systems will be installed in leading-edge
vans and trucks produced by Tanfield's UKbased trading division, Smith Electric Vehicles, the world's largest manufacturer of
electric vans and trucks.
Under the agreement, Tanfield will purchase
up to $70 million of Valence products in the
contract's first phase and Valence has
already received a firm purchase order for
the first calendar quarter.
The agreement will also result in Tanfield
becoming the first volume customer for
Valence's third generation Lithium Phosphate Epoch™ technology, a battery system
equipped with an advanced management
system that monitors and automatically
adjusts cell performance so battery packs
operate at their optimum performance
capacity. Epoch benefits include a fail-soft
capability that is designed to eliminate system failure caused by a single cell and to
have a life cycle comprised of more than
2000 charge cycles when deep discharged
in demanding electric vehicle applications.
www.valence.com
www.smithelectricvehicles.com
VP, Industrial & Multimarket Businesses
Tim Phillips is
currently the
Vice President of
the Industrial
and Multimarket
Businesses at
Infineon Technologies North
America.
Mr. Phillips was most recently leading the
Enterprise Power Business Unit at International Rectifier (IR) with global ownership of
low voltage power ICs, DirectFETs and other
power products.
At IR, Mr. Phillips also served as Director of
Field Applications until his promotion in 2003
to Executive Director of Marketing and Field
Applications for the Computing & Communications Business Unit. In 2005 Mr. Phillips
was promoted to Vice President, Corporate
Marketing and Investor Relations.
Mr. Phillips also held technical and leadership positions at Cherry Semiconductor and
ON Semiconductor in Power IC Design,
Applications, Marketing, and Business
Development.
Mr. Phillips earned both his Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Science
in Electrical Engineering from the University
of Rhode Island and is a member of the
Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
and the National Investor Relations Institute.
He holds three patents and has authored
numerous publications on various industry
topics.
www.infineon.com
H2Expo 2008 in Hamburg
7th International Conference and Trade Fair
on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies,
from 22 to 23 October 2008.
New research results and projects by scientists from all over the world are a feature of
the H2Expo, 7th International Conference
and Trade Fair on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell
Technologies, to be held at the CCH Congress Center Hamburg from 22 to 23 October 2008. There will also be presentations by
leading manufacturers of their new market
developments and industrial and commercial
applications. The second day of the H2Expo
will for the first time also highlight a conference on the EU project "Zemships - Zero
Emission Ships". The patron of the H2Expo
2008 is Ole von Beust, Mayor of Hamburg,
reflecting the leading position which Hamburg takes in hydrogen and fuel cell technology in Europe.
Under the guidance of its high-powered
Advisory Board and International Conference
Programme Committee, H2Expo has
become a dedicated and vitally important
forum for the needs of the industry today. It
will bring together scientists, technicians and
engineers from Germany and abroad to discuss a wide range of issues in application of
these technologies. Its symposium and workshops will present and discuss current
research, projects and applications in various countries.
A first-time feature at the H2Expo 2008 will
be a conference presenting the world's first
fuel cell powered passenger ship, which
starts operating in Hamburg this summer.
www.h2expo.de
SPICE Simulations and Practical Designs
For those
who design
switch mode
power supplies, or
would like to,
the books
currently
available on
the market
are either too
academical,
without links
to the market
reality or too
6
April 2008
practical, without firm theoretical foundations. "Switch Mode Power Supply: SPICE
Simulations and Practical Designs" from
Christophe Basso, combines both worlds by
offering a theoretical study of power conversion in the dc-dc and ac-dc fields via a systematic equation-based approach. Then,
capitalizing on the experience accumulated
by the author at ON Semiconductor, the
book takes you by the hand and shows how
SPICE can help you designing power factor
correctors, flyback and forward converters
with real case situations: small-signal analysis first, using new auto-toggling average
models specifically developed for this publi-
cation, and practical implementation with
more than 10 design examples. The 800
pages of "Switch Mode Power Supply:
SPICE Simulations and Practical Designs"
can be thought as a design companion for
the practicing engineer and as an in-depth
tutorial introduction to power conversion
design for the students and the new comers
to this field.
www.amazon.com/Switch-Mode
-Power-Supplies-Christophe
-basso/dp/0071508589/
www.bodospower.com
PowerWise® 2.5A, 42V SIMPLE SWITCHER®
Synchronous Step-Down Regulators
national.com/switcher
Constant-on-Time (COT) LM310x Regulators Are Energy-Efficient, Need No Loop
Compensation and Are Stable with Ceramic Capacitors
VIN = 4.5V to 42V
Efficiency vs Load Current
VO = 1.8V
T = 25 °C
85
VIN
80
LM3102, VIN = 24V
VOUT > 0.6V
FADJ
LM310x
Enable
COUT
Soft-start
Efficiency (%)
75
LM3102, VIN = 42V
70
Non-sync, VIN = 24V
65
Non-sync, VIN = 42V
60
55
50
45
FB
40
PGND
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
Load Current (A)
AGND
Product ID
VIN Range (V)
Current (A)
VFB (V)
Frequency (MHz)
Packaging
LM3100
4.5 to 36
1.5
0.8
Up to 1
eTSSOP-20
LM3102
4.5 to 42
2.5
0.8
Up to 1
eTSSOP-20
LM3103
4.5 to 42
0.75
0.6
Up to 1
eTSSOP-16
LM310x Features
U COT control provides extremely fast transient response
U Stable with ceramic capacitors; no additional series ESR at COUT needed
U Very low output ripple
U VIN feed forward enables near-constant frequency operation at variable input voltage
U No loop compensation reduces external component count
U Pre-bias startup (pre-charged COUT)
U Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) operation for light load
U Enabled in National’s WEBENCH® online design environment
Applications
Embedded systems, industrial controls, automotive telematics and body electronics, point-of-load regulators, storage systems,
and broadband infrastructure.
For samples, datasheets, online design tools, and
more information about PowerWise products, visit:
national.com/switcher
Phone: +44 (0) 870 850 4288
Email: [email protected]
© National Semiconductor Corporation, 2008. National Semiconductor, , PowerWise, SIMPLE SWITCHER, and WEBENCH are registered trademarks
of National Semiconductor Corporation. All rights reserved.
NEWS
Record-Setting High-Frequency Circuit
Engineering researchers from the University
of Florida (UF) and Texas Instruments (TI)
have crafted the world's highest frequency
circuit made with a common type of semiconductor transistor, a step that could slash
the price of detectors useful in medicine,
environmental monitoring and military applications.
The breakthrough was presented by University of Florida and TI engineers Wednesday
at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.
Ken O, a UF professor of electrical and computer engineering and the lead researcher
on the project, said his team had demonstrated a 410 gigahertz (GHz) circuit using
complementary metal oxide silicon, or
CMOS, technology - the technology used to
make many of the components in personal
computers, cell phones and handheld electronic devices.
Measured in a UF laboratory using a circuit
equipped with a tiny on-chip antenna the
size of a pen tip, 410 GHz eclipses the pre-
vious record for CMOS circuits set in February 2006 by 200 GHz. More important, it is
around 60 GHz higher than the previous
record set using alternative but more expensive indium phosphide technology. TI's
advanced manufacturing technology, known
as the 45-nanometer (nm) CMOS process,
serves as the foundation for the new circuit.
www.ti.com
New Design Center in Hangzhou, China
Intersil Corporation announced it has
opened a new Design & Application Center
in Hangzhou, China. The new center will
develop reference designs and provide system level application support for Intersil's
growing customer base in China as well as
customers around the world. The new
design center is part of the company's ongoing strategy to increase its investment and
footprint in the Chinese market, and better
serve the growing number of Chinese companies that are designing products requiring
Intersil's high-performance analog ICs.
The center will provide customers with a
range of value added services, along with
Intersil's broad line of high-performance analog solutions, based on specifications including form factor, power requirements, pre-
ferred peripheral components, time to market, price and other factors.
Another primary focus of the center will be
ongoing collaboration with the Joint Power
Management Laboratory that Intersil established in late 2007 at Zhejiang University,
also based in Hangzhou.
www.intersil.com
Acquisition Expands IC Design Capabilities
Power Integrations announced that it has
acquired Potentia Semiconductor, a developer of innovative controller chips for highpower AC-DC power supplies. Potentia's
engineering team, based in Ottawa, Canada,
will form the core of a new analog design
group for Power Integrations focused primarily on high-power applications.
"Potentia is an excellent addition to our
team," said Balu Balakrishnan, president and
CEO of Power Integrations. "Like Power
Integrations, Potentia is focused on developing innovative power-conversion ICs and
system designs that reduce the size, complexity and energy usage of power supplies.
Their design capabilities and intellectual
property will accelerate our efforts to
address high-power applications and significantly expand our addressable market."
Power Integrations paid approximately $5.5
million in cash for Potentia, including closing
costs. The acquisition closed on December
31, 2007. Power Integrations' financial
results for the fourth quarter of 2007 include
a one-time charge of $1.4 million for purchased in-process research and development expenses.
www.powerint.com
2008 European Technology Day Series
Texas Instruments will present a training entitled "2008 TI Technology
Days" in several European cities (e.g. Stuttgart, Brno, Milan, Hannover, Paris, St Petersburg), starting on April 23 and continuing
through October 2008. This series includes technical design seminars that focus on the techniques of practical design applications
illustrated along with technology exhibits.
For detailed information on dates, locations and to register, see:
www.ti.com/techday08-pr
CEO of the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore
Professor Joachim Luther, the former director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE is to lead the Solar Energy
8
April 2008
Research Institute of Singapore SERIS
founded in February 2008. SERIS was set
up as an independent institution within the
National University of Singapore NUS. For
the first five years, a budget of approximately 60 million EURO is provided, about half of
which is planned for investments in scientific
and technical equipment.
"Building up SERIS in Singapore gives me
the possibility to again play an active and
formative role in the area of solar energy
research and technology development," says
Joachim Luther. "My wife and I immensely
enjoy undertaking new things.
The Singapore government and the National
University of Singapore are presenting us
the best conditions for doing just this." The
work at SERIS will be predominantly industry-oriented. Innovations directed toward the
short- and mid-term time frame are the focus
of the research. The work strongly oriented
towards the long-term time frame will be
carried out in close cooperation between the
NUS and SERIS.
www.ise.fraunhofer.de
www.bodospower.com
NEWS
PCIM Europe 2008
From 27-29 May 2008, Nuremberg will once again be host to
PCIM Europe 2008 - now in its 29th year and the meeting
place for experts from the power electronics, intelligent
motion and power quality/energy management sectors. With
the exhibition and conference taking place together, the
event offers a comprehensive range of information over three
days.
Companies from all over the world will use this high quality
event to show off their innovative products and solutions, as
well as the current trends in the market.
The main exhibits range from semiconductors, components
and sensors, motors and rectifiers through to power management systems, simulation and design software, as well as
many of the latest developments in the power electronics
sector.
The PCIM Europe 2008 gets underway with ten tutorials on
Monday, 26 May 2008.The tutorials will be led by top experts
from the USA, France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.
The PCIM Conference and Exhibition will be held in parallel
(27 - 29 May 2008). The conference program, with its focus
on power electronics, intelligent motion and power quality /
energy management, includes more than 120 first-time presentations, four keynote papers, a special session: "Automotive Power" and a round table discussion: "Passives in Power
Electronics".
ECPE Pavilion
A further highlight is the pavilion of the ECPE (European
Center for Power Electronics e.V. - the industrial and
research network for power electronics in Europe) in hall12
(booth 366) - which together with leading European Centers
of Excellence (university and research institutes) will be presenting its activities in the field of power electronics.
www.pcim.de
When power control
failure is not an option . . .
)JHI'SFRVFODZ5SBOTGPSNFST
GPS)JHI7BMVF4ZTUFNT
r%SJWF$POUSPMTGPS3BJM.BSJOF
r8JOE1PXFS4PMBS1PXFS$POUSPM
r*OEVTUSJBM%SJWF$POUSPMT
PQUJNJ[FEGPSDPSPOBBOE
QBSUJBMEJTDIBSHFSFRVJSFNFOUT
HF Transformer Types:
t)JHI*TPMBUJPO
t(BUF%SJWF
t4XJUDI.PEF
t4JHOBM$POEJUJPOJOH
t-PBE-FWFMJOH
t1VMTF
Bicron Electronics Company
www.bicronusa.us
1 800 624 2766, 1 860 824 5125
In Europe—TransElectro, DK +45 9858 1022
Purchase of Shanghai Manufacturing Operation
XP Power announced that it has bought out
its partners 50% shareholding of their manufacturing joint venture, Forton XP Power.
The $2.5m deal gives XP Power complete
control and ownership of the 26,000 sq ft
power supply manufacturing operation that
was established with Forton in 2006.
Expansion plans, already commenced, will
provide an additional 60,000 sq ft of manufacturing and administration space. As part
of the increased manufacturing facilities, a
short-run production line will be set up. This
will allow pre-production units to be delivered
to customers within 4 - 6 weeks of order.
www.xppower.com
Middle East Electricity Exhibition - Dubai
Ferraz Shawmut which manufactures fuses,
fusegear items & thermal management systems and has manufacturing units located in
various parts of the world, stated that Middle
East Electricity is crucial to its marketing
activity in the region.
With rapidly expanding populations, the
demand for energy throughout the Middle
East continues to surge upward. According
to the World Energy Council, GCC countries
will require a total of 100,000MW of power
over the next ten years alone.
Bangalore Ferraz Shawmut unit manufacturs
products comply the ISO and IEC/BS
www.bodospower.com
/DIN/UL standards.
At Middle East Electricity Ferraz Shawmut
presented its new range of medium voltage
fuses complying with the standards and
offered a solution of sectioning medium voltage with its motorized disconnect Berg
2500V/2000A.
Ferraz Shawmut group shows its desire to
proximity and availability through the presence of teams of sellers dedicated to the
brand and a network of master distributors
with local stocks.
www.ferrazshawmut.com
April 2008
9
NEWS
The 5th International Conference on Integrated Power
Electronics Systems CIPS 2008
CIPS 2008 took place in Nuremberg/Germany from March 11 to 13, 2008. 232 attendees from industry, research institutes and
universities came together at the GeorgSimon-Ohm University where they enjoyed
an exciting and diversified programme. The
conference was organized by ETG, the
Power Engineering Society within VDE, and
co-organized by ECPE, the European Center for Power Electronics. The topics of the
conference were:
Robustness and reliability of power modules
EMC and thermal management
Advanced packaging technology
Gate drives and control
Passive components
SiC devices and Si integrated smart power
Power electronics and system integration
According to these topics, the conference
was structured by 12 invited papers accompanied by 35 regular papers and 15 posters.
Helmut Keller (ZVEI) explained in the opening session the new concept of robustness
validation for automotive and aerospace
electronic components and systems. It
means a paradigm shift from “fit for test” to
“fit for application”. As a consequence the
new philosophy is based on the good knowledge of mission profiles (it describes all the
stresses applied during operation), physicsof failure and the end-of-life tests. The
robustness validation initiative is a joint effort
of ZVEI, SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) and JSAE (Japanese SAE). As another consequence modelling and simulation
becomes more and more important. Chris
Bailey (University of Greenwich, UK) presented his approach on “predictive reliability,
prognostics and risk assessment for power
modules”. Accurate lifetime prediction based
on realistic mission profiles represents a
challenge for the design of complex devices
and systems. Mauro Ciappa (ETH Zurich)
gave some examples where this problem
has been solved by proper analysis, by dedicated physical modelling, and by efficient
calculation tools.
10
April 2008
It is a common understanding that reliability
has to be built-in from the beginning in a
design process. This is true as well for building-in EMI (electromagnetic interference).
Jean-Luc Schanen (G2ELab, CNRS,
France) and Eckart Hoene (Fraunhofer IZM,
Berlin) described in detail the effects which
may occur and methods how to avoid electromagnetic disturbances. Examples were
given for power modules and power electronic systems.
A review on highly integrated solutions for
power electronics devices was given by Jürgen Schulz-Harder (Electrovac Curamic,
Germany). He described several concepts
how to extract heat from the IGBT- and
diode-chips best. Of great interest are double-sided liquid cooling concepts like from
Alstom, Toyota, Fraunhofer and Curamik.
Uwe Scheuermann (Semikron) introduced
the new solderless SKIM module and
showed very promising reliability data. Solderless means applying the silver sintering
technology instead of soft solder. One of the
big advantages is the high melting temperature of silver (962°C) which yields to more
stable thermomechanical properties of the
joint. Guo-Quan Lu (CPES, USA) described
pros and cons of the nano-silver joining: For
getting good and reliable joints a small pressure in comparison to “classic” silver sintering is needed.
SiC based power semiconductors are
becoming more and more mature. Peter
Friedrichs (SiCED, Germany) reported on
system solutions where SiC– Schottky
diodes and –JFETs are yielding to compact
systems which have good potential for cost
reductions. Dominique Bergogne (Ampere,
INSA-Lyon, France) discussed circuit topologies for normally-on SiC JFETs. He showed
that inverters using normally-on power
switches do not differ from inverters based
on normally-off devices when the gate driver
is taken into account. He proposed building
blocks of a gate driver solely using SiC normally-on JFETs.
Three invited papers were presented in the
system integration session. Gerald Deboy
(Infineon, Austria) took the power supply for
server applications to discuss specific challenges for power factor correction, isolating
PWM stage and synchronous rectification. A
deep understanding of the behaviour of the
CoolMOS, however, is necessary to optimize
the overall system.
Dushan Boroyevich (CPES, USA) gave an
overview of the results achieved during 10
years of operation of CPES (Center of
Power Electronics Systems, Virginia Tech).
Many of the demonstrators built and tested
were accepted by industry like non-wirebond
packages. The activities at Virginia Tech will
continue even CPES as a NSF center of
excellence will stop.
Hiromichi Ohashi (AIST/PERC, Japan)
reported on SiC activities and achievements
made. These are: micropipe-free wafers,
MOSFETs, high voltage devices, Power
electronics systems. It was interesting to
learn that Japan is aiming for a full electrified
society in 2050 to be independent from fossil
materials. Power electronics will be a dominant technology.
ECPE has organised a panel discussion on
´Intelligent Power Electronics for Energy Efficiency - Research Needs and Opportunities´
focussing on the future role of power electronics research topics in the ICT Programme of EC FP7. Manuel Sanchez (EC,
ICT for Sustainable Growth) presented
actions at EU level in the field of Information
& Communication Technologies for Energy
Efficiency. Experts from CPES, AIST/PERC
and ECPE highlighted the key role of power
electronics for energy saving and improved
energy efficiency.
In the last session ECPE proposed
Research and Technology Roadmaps in the
fields of automotive, high frequency power
conversion < and > than 1 kW. To support
the seven power electronics roadmaps a
bottom-up roadmap, containing roadmaps
for all parts and components used in the
power electronics system was introduced as
well.
It is planned that the 6th CIPS Conference
will take place again in Nuremberg in spring
2010.
www.ecpe.org
www.bodospower.com
NEWS
Fifth Largest Power Adapter
Supplier to be Created
The recent announcement that Flextronics plans to purchase CEAG's
FRIWO Mobile Power Solutions unit would catapult Flextronics into
the top five of world power adapter manufacturers. IMS Research
estimates that following the planned acquisition, Flextronics could
hold a 6-7% share of the $4.5 billion power adapter market. The proposed move could see Flextronics leap-frog its competitors to
become one of the largest suppliers of adapters.
"It comes as no surprise that CEAG has decided to cash in FRIWO's
mobile power division" commented David Dewan, market analyst.
"The mobile charger business has become increasingly commoditized and this is not in-line with FRIWO's high-margin, advanced
technology strategy." Dewan added.
Dewan further comment, "Whilst the external power adapter market
has seen tremendous growth over the past few years, it is now predicted to slow considerably. Shipments of mobile phones and hence
power adapters are projected to again grow well in 2008, though
longer-term prospects are less certain and so it may be some time
until we see if this move by Flextronics will pay off."
IMS Research regularly published detailed market data on external
power adapters and chargers.
www.imsresearch.com
Engineering Services
TurnAround Strategies, LLC has added
Engineering Services to Its Business Service offerings. Utilizing Engineering Services on an "as need basis" is ideal for
companies whose internal engineering
resources are fully committed. Tasks
such as preparing data sheets, writing
technical articles for publication, design
and applications support for new and
existing products, technical assistance
with problem designs are examples of the
services offered.
The Engineering Service Group is headed by Robert (Bob) Heuner
who has 40 years engineering experience with ITT Laboratories,
RCA, GE and US Army Research Laboratory. He is the holder of 20
Patents issued in the Integrated Circuit CMOS and Bipolar Circuit,
Device and Logic Design areas. Mr. Heuner holds an MSEE from
New Jersey Institute of Technology and BSEE from City College,
New York.
TurnAround Strategies, LLC was founded in 1997 by Eugene (Gene)
Reiss after a 40 year career in engineering and management with
RCA, GE and Harris. Gene holds a BS in Chemistry and a MBA in
Management/Finance.
Energy
efficiency
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Industry, Transportation
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Digital IGBT Drivers
• Efficiency: Power saving
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www.turnaroundstrategies.net
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[email protected]
Phone+49(0)8196-9300-0
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April 2008
Innovative Power Solutions
11
C O M PA N Y N E W S
German President
Visits SEMIKRON, Nuremberg
The occasion for the visit on Monday, 3rd
March 2008 is a successful training programme for semi-skilled and non-skilled personnel carried out in co-operation with the
German Employment Agency as part of
WeGebAU 2007, a training programme for
older and under-qualified employees.
Figure 2:
Waiting in the rain and cold was worth it,
Horst Köhler greets some of the staff.
In addition to their normal work at SEMIKRON, staff undergo training as part of the 'I
want a profession!' scheme fostered by the
German Employment Agency, the HR and
organisational development company ffw
GmbH, the Nuremberg-based training centre
Eurobildungswerk, and the Chamber of
Trade and Commerce. This programme
involves training in machinery and plant
engineering and ends with a formal Chamber of Trade and Commerce qualification.
For a total of 125 days, 22 employees will be
relieved of their normal responsibilities in
order to be able to take part in the programme. A second group is to start training
in October. "This programme will raise the
level of qualification among our personnel,
making them more flexible for different areas
of activity," explains Andreas Dauer, Head of
Corporate Development at Semikron.
The last financial year was a particularly
good year for SEMIKRON, with the company
achieving a turnover of EUR 430 million double the turnover of four years ago. The
main drivers behind the success of Semikron, a global semiconductor manufacturer
boasting 35 subsidiaries in 27 countries and
10 production locations, were new technologies in the area of renewable energy. In the
past 10 years the number of employees in
Germany has more than tripled. Today,
Semikron employs 1,350 people in Germany
and 3,000 worldwide.
12
April 2008
Over a period of two
years, Semikron will
be investing over
EUR 100 million into
the expansion of its
production locations.
EUR 65 million of
this will go into the
company's HQ in
Nuremberg, where
the main gaols are
to double chip production capacity and
further expand the
New Technologies
division. To achieve
Figure 1: The children and carer of Mikro, SEMIKRON`s on-site child
this, more engineers
care facility, greet the German President Horst Köhler. From left to
with an innovative
right: Peter Martin (Partner), Horst Köhler, Dirk Heidenreich (CEO
spirit and the willingSEMIKRON) and Andreas Heilbronner (Partner).
ness to adopt
responsibility quickly are needed. This is the
key to producing new products for emerging
markets such as those for wind and solar
power, hybrid vehicles, frequency converters
in electric drives, industrial installations and
power supply systems.
Today, SEMIKRON technology can be found
in as much as 43% of wind power systems
worldwide. Put differently, our technology is
used in wind power installations with a
cumulative output of 31 GW and around 13
Biblis-type nuclear power plants. Another
area where much progress has been made
is the Power Modules for Electric Drives division, which has upped its turnover by 30%.
Electric drives account for 70% of the total
industrial power consumption. Thanks to
variable-speed drives featuring power electronics, 30% less energy is needed (Source:
ZVEI, 11/2007).
Figure 4: Romeo Coric und Georgeta Stoica,
two participants who are training in machinery and plant engineering, with Horst Köhler.
Besides innovative training schemes, SEMIKRON also pursues a modern, family-friendly corporate policy. Testimony to this are the
on-site child care facilities MIKRO, which
were officially opened in 2007 by German
Minister for Family Affairs Ursula von der
Leyen and Bavarian Interior Minister
Dr. Günther Beckstein, as well as Semikron's achievements in the competition 'Success Factor Family, which were honoured by
the Lord Mayor of Nuremberg Dr. Ulrich
Maly. And last but not least, German President Köhler's visit to Semikron further attests
to the broad recognition of the innovative,
family-oriented HR policy at SEMIKRON.
www.semikron.com
Figure 3: Dr Thomas Stockmeier (CTO
SEMIKRON) accompanies Mr Köhler during
the production tour. On the left is Dirk Heidenreich (CEO).
www.bodospower.com
Energy-Efficient Power
Solutions
High-Performance Analog >>Your Way
™
At TI, we’ve been helping our customers design high-performance power conversion products that meet strict
efficiency regulations for over 20 years. TI can help you get to market fast with a winning, energy-saving design.
That’s High-Performance Analog >>Your Way.
UCC28600
TPS40140
Green Mode PWM Controller
Stackable Multiphase Controller
TPS2410
ORing FET Power Rail Controller
UCC28060
UCC28070
UCD9112
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Industry’s First Single-Chip
Interleaved PFC Controller
Digital Controller w/Configurable GUI
PTH08T250W
50-A Non-Isolated Power Module
w/TurboTransTM Technology
TMS320F28335 Digital Signal Controller
Enables off-line power supplies to meet light-load efficiency standards
Improves point-of-load efficiency in power-hungry data centers
and telecom equipment
Replaces low-efficiency diodes with high-efficiency, high-reliability
control and protection solutions
Dual phase for high-efficiency, high-power density and easy phase
management for light-load efficiency
Easy-to-use, flexible point-of-load solution for multi-rail and multi-phase
power topologies
96%-efficient, stackable, and easy-to-use point-of-load module
for servers, wireless infrastructure, datacom and telecom equipment
Highly integrated digital controller improves efficiency of renewable
energy systems
www.ti.com/greenpower-e or call toll free:
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or international: +49 (0) 8161 80 2121
Get Samples, Evaluation Modules and the
Power Management Selection Guide
TurboTrans, High-Performance Analog >>Your Way and the platform bar are trademarks of Texas Instruments. 1997A1© 2008 TI
PRODUCT OF THE MONTH
Sixfold 24V Line Driver with
Energy Recycling
Reduced Power Consumption allows higher Packaging Density
The line driver iC-HX is pin compatible to the iC-DL, but has an additional operating mode to reuse electrical energy stored on the output
lines. Depending on cable length and impedance, this mode reduces
the power dissipation down to 50 per cent and allows the designer to
increase packaging density on the PCB board.
medical technology since 1984 and is represented worldwide. The
iC-Haus cell libraries in bipolar, CMOS and BCD technologies are
fully equipped to realize the design of Sensor-ASiC, Laser-/OptoASiC and Actuator-ASiC devices.
The iCs are assembled either in standard plastic packages or using
chip-on-board technology to manufacture complete microsystems,
multichip modules or – in combination with sensors – optoBGAsTM.
Further information is available on the iC-Haus website at
www.ichaus.com
Bodo´s Power
Electronics in Motion and Conversion
With output resistance in the range of 30 to 140 Ohm, the iC-HX is
adapted to usual cable impedance and permits trouble-free transmission of signals without ringing effects.
Drivers can be paired for 3-channel differential operation. The pushpull output stages can cope with a high driver power of typically 300
mA from 24 V; they are also current-limited and short-circuit-proof,
shutting down with excessive temperature.
For bus applications the output stages can be switched to high
impedance using input ENA.
C-HX monitors supply voltages VB and VCC and also the chip temperature, switching all output stages to high impedance in the event
of error. The open-drain output NERR, which is also short-circuitproof, signals errors via the connected line and can be linked up to
the message outputs of other ICs via input TNER to generate system
error messages.
All inputs are CMOS and TTL compatible and protected against ESD.
Just 5 x 5 mm2 in size, the QFN28 package with its integrated thermal pad enables iC-HX to be operated in a wide temperature range
of -40 to 125 °C.
iC-Haus GmbH is one of the leading independent German manufacturers of standard iCs (ASSP) and customized ASiC semiconductor
solutions. The company has been active in the design, production
and sales of application-specific iCs for industrial, automotive and
14
April 2008
iption at
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Combined electrical and thermal simulation
PLECS 2.0 features:
Power electronic circuits
Electrical circuits with ideal
switches embedded in Simulink®
... circuit simulation
at system level
Thermal loss modeling
Power semiconductor losses
computed from look-up tables
Analysis tools
Fast steady-state and AC analysis
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plexim
BLUE PRODUCT OF THE MONTH
TI Expands Battery Fuel
Gauge Family
Smart phones and mobile internet devices are the target
System-Side and Pack-Side Impedance
Track™ Fuel Gauge ICs with Integrated
LDO Simplify Power Management Design.
Texas Instruments introduced two new battery fuel gauge devices with integrated lowdropout regulators (LDOs) for smart phones,
mobile internet devices and media players
with embedded or removable batteries. The
new system-side and battery pack-side fuel
gauges build on TI's popular family of integrated circuits (ICs) that predict battery life
with 99-percent accuracy to extend run-time,
protect data and provide a better user experience.
The bq27510 system-side battery fuel gauge
with Impedance Track™ technology incorporates a LDO and can be powered directly
from the battery cell with less external circuitry, regardless of system voltage. In addition to simplifying design of the fuel gauge
into the host system, it accurately measures
remaining capacity data from a device's single-cell Li-Ion battery to predict remaining
battery capacity under all conditions, even
as a battery ages. See
www.ti.com/bq27510.
In addition to the system-side battery fuel
gauges, TI's new bq27540 device resides
directly on the embedded or removable battery pack to intelligently manage available
power that resides in the battery. The
bq27540 will support SDQ, HDQ and I2C
communication protocols to allow the system
to read important information from the battery. For more information, see:
www.ti.com/bq27540.
Accurate Battery Data Helps Systems
Optimize Power Better
Accurate fuel gauging helps systems intelligently manage available power, alert the
user of system operating-time, and extend
the run-time of the system as far as possible. Mobile application processors, such as
TI's OMAP™ 3 platform with SmartReflex™
16
April 2008
power and performance technologies, rely
on accurate battery data to better optimize
the mobile device's complete power operating system. As with the bq27500, the
bq27510 and bq27540 provide an accurate
reserve energy warning, which allows a system to save data to non-volatile memory
before the system shuts down, so work is
not lost when a battery runs to empty.
TI demonstrated its battery fuel gauge technology, power management ICs and highperformance audio products at the GSMA
Mobile World Congress, the world's biggest
wireless communications conference and
exhibition, in Barcelona, February 11-14,
2008.
Pricing and Availability
The bq27510 and the bq27540 are sampling
today, with volume production expected in
the second quarter of 2008. Available in a
space-saving 12-pin, 2.5 mm x 4 mm SON
package, both devices' suggested retail price
is $1.35 each in 1,000-piece quantities. Evaluation modules of the bq27500, bq27510
and bq27540, design application notes, user
guides and TI's bqEASY™ software design
tool are available through http://power.ti.com.
About Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps customers solve problems and develop new
electronics that make the world smarter,
healthier, safer, greener and more fun. A
global semiconductor company, TI innovates
through manufacturing, design and sales
operations in more than 25 countries.
www.ti.com
www.bodospower.com
The Best-Selling 2-Channel IGBT Driver Core
The 2SD315AI is a 2-channel driver for
IGBTs up to 1700V (optionally up to
3300V). Its gate current capability of
±15A is optimized for IGBTs from 200A
to 1200A.
The 2SD315AI has been established on the market as an industrial standard
for the last four years. The driver has been tried and tested within hundreds
of thousands of industrial and traction applications. The calculated MTBF to
MIL Hdbk 217F is 10 million hours at 40°C. According to field data, the actual
reliability is even higher. The operating temperature is -40°C...+85°C.
The driver is equipped with the awardwinning CONCEPT SCALE driver
chipset, consisting of the gate driver
ASIC IGD001 and the logic-to-driver
interface ASIC LDI001.
Driver stage for a gate current up
to ±15A per channel, stabilized by
large ceramic capacitors
Chipset Features
Specially designed transformers for
creepage distances of 21mm
between inputs and outputs or
between the two channels. Insulating materials to UL V-0. Partial discharge test according IEC270.
• Short-circuit protection
• Supply undervoltage lockout
• Direct or half-bridge mode
• Dead-time generation
• High dv/dt immunity up to 100kV/us
• Transformer interface
• Isolated status feedback
• 5V...15V logic signals
• Schmitt-trigger inputs
• Switching frequency DC to >100kHz
• Duty cycle 0...100%
• Delay time typ. 325ns
Isolated DC/DC power supply with
3W per channel
More information: www.IGBT-Driver.com/go/2SD315AI
CT-Concept Technology Ltd. is the technology
leader in the domain of intelligent driver components for MOS-gated power semiconductor
devices and can look back on more than 15
years of experience.
Key product families include plug-and-play
drivers and universal driver cores for mediumand high-voltage IGBTs, application-specific
driver boards and integrated driver circuits
(ASICs).
By providing leading-edge solutions and expert
professional services. CONCEPT is an essential
partner to companies that design systems for
power conversion and motion. From customspecific integrated circuit expertise to the
design of megawatt-converters, CONCEPT provides solutions to the toughest challenges confronting engineers who are pushing power to
the limits.
As an ideas factory, we set new standards with
respect to gate driving powers up to 15W per
channel, short transit times of less than 100ns,
plug-and-play functionality and unmatched fieldproven reliability.
In recent years we have developed a series of
customized products which are unbeatable in
terms of today´s technological feasibility.
Our success is based on years of experience, our
outstanding know-how as well as the will and
motivation of our employees to attain optimum
levels of performance and quality. For genuine
innovations, CONCEPT has won numerous technology competitions and awards, e.g. the “Swiss
Technology Award” for exceptional achievements
in the sector of research and technology, and
the special prize from ABB Switzerland for the
best project in power electronics. This underscores the company´s leadership in the sector of
power electronics.
CT-Concept Technologie AG
Renferstrasse 15
2504 Biel-Bienne
Switzerland
Tel +41-32-344 47 47
Fax +41-32-344 47 40
[email protected]
www.IGBT-Driver.com
Let experts drive your
power devices
GUEST EDITORIAL
Energy Effciency and the
More-Electric-World
By Thomas Harder, ECPE European Center for Power Electronics
For many years, power electronics has been
a well developing industrial segment with
solid annual growth rates and a very dynamic technology progress e.g. in power semiconductor technology or system integration.
As a cross functional discipline, power electronics is a key and enabling technology for
many industrial segments such as automotive, home and office, communication,
automation, energy supply and distribution,
etc. But in spite of this important role, power
electronics is not well recognised outside the
power community, there is almost no awareness in public. This was one motivation for
European power electronics industry to
found the ECPE Network with one focus on
public relations and lobbying for power electronics in Europe, apart from the other activities in precompetitive research as well as
education and advanced training.
Two negative consequences of this shadowy
existence are that research funding programmes do not target at power electronics
innovations, and that power electronics is
not attracting young engineers.
It seems that this situation has changed
overnight, thanks to the ubiquitous discussion on CO2 emission, future energy supply
and energy efficiency. Power electronics topics moved into the focus of public, politicians
18
April 2008
and policy makers,power electronics experts
are invited to discuss about energy supply
and improved efficiency.
People have realised that power electronics
can contribute to energy saving and
improved efficiency in several aspects:
· Increasing efficiency of power electronic
components, modules and systems by optimised component technology or circuit
topology e.g. for photovoltaic inverters or
power supplies.
· Improving energy efficiency on system
level applying power electronics e.g. by
introducing variable speed drives or
enabling energy recovery or recuperation
of electric drives e.g. in trains, cars or lifts.
· Energy savings with intelligent power electronics. The key for customer acceptance
and market penetration is costs requiring a
(mechatronic) integration of power electronics in the application system, together
with sensors and information and communication technologies.
A major impact lies in the integration of
power electronics, ICT and sensors to save
electrical energy with more intelligent systems in various power electronics applications. Some examples for smart (remote)
controlled power electronic systems are
smart battery management systems or smart
home including lighting, heating and cooling.
Further examples are load management, the
use of decentralised energy storage systems
for power quality function and grid stabilisation or smart remote control of decentralised
PV converters for active power factor correction.
Discrete solutions are possible today, but
significant cost reduction and performance
improvement is necessary for a market penetration. This can be achieved by smart integrated power electronic modules. On the
other hand, these advanced integrated modules applying high temperature power electronics and ultra-high power density mechatronics will facilitate to keep power electronics production in Europe.
The finiteness of fossil energy sources and
the need for energy saving and improved
energy efficiency are pushing forward an
electrification of our society. Today, we are
discussing about electric vehicles but also
about more-electric aircrafts and more-electric ships. In the next decades, we will see a
transition from the burning of fossil fuels
towards green electricity, step by step. For
example Japan is aiming for a full electrified
society in 2050 to be independent from fossil
materials. Power electronics will be a dominant technology.
ECPE is driving this public discussion since
the European Workshop on ´Energy Efficiency – the Role of Power Electronics´ in February 2007 in Brussels. We summarised main
results in a Position Paper which found its
way through the Brussels offices of the European Commission. ECPE was invited to discuss on ´Intelligent power electronics for
energy efficiency´ within the Information &
Communication Technologies (ICT) Programme of the European Commission. We
are very confident that Power Electronics will
be part of the ICT funding programme in the
near future.
In parallel, ECPE is running a programme on
Power Electronics Research & Technology
Roadmap development where energy saving
and improved energy efficiency is a key driver as well. Research and technology
roadmaps are an important strategic tool to
identify and guide a mainstream for medium
to long term research.
In general, the energy saving discussion
gives us strong arguments to attract young
people. But power electronics engineers can
make significant contributions to protect
environment and to save our world. Renewable energy generation with wind turbines,
photovoltaic and wave or water power are
not viable without power electronics.
We will continue our public relations activities e.g. with the ECPE Students Day at
PCIM Europe Exhibition. Future is bright for
power electronics but we have to spread our
message.
www.ecpe.org
www.bodospower.com
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©2007 Intersil Americas Inc. All rights reserved. The following are trademarks or services marks owned by Intersil Corporation
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MARKET
ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY DIGEST
By Aubrey Dunford, Europartners
GENERAL
Is Vietnam the next
Tiger? With a population of 82.2 million, a fast growing
economy - Vietnam
evolves as the most
promising electronics market in Southeast Asia. Vietnam's electronic
industry targets
US$4-6 billion in production value and
US$3-5 billion in export turnover by 2010.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Spending on equipping fabs in 2008 is
expected to decline 15 percent compared to
the nine percent growth last year, so SEMI.
The report indicates a decline in equipment
spending by almost ten percent for
foundries, about 15 percent for memory, and
about 30 percent for the logic/MPU segment.
David Bell was named Chief Executive Officer of Intersil. Mr. Bell has served as President and COO since April 2, 2007.
Renesas, Sharp and Powerchip Semiconductor announced an agreement to establish
a joint venture (Renesas 55%, Sharp 25%,
PSC 20%) specializing in drivers and controllers for small- and mid-size LCDs. Consolidating the business operations of Renesas and Sharp in this field, the new company
will focus on LCD drivers and controllers.
Enrico Villa has been appointed CATRENE
Chairman, (Cluster for Application and Technology Research in Europe on NanoElectronics), succeeding Jozef Cornu. End of
2007 Mr. Villa retired from STMicroelectronics. At the same time Jacques Dulongpont
has taken over the responsibility as new
CATRENE Office Director.
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has
signed an agreement with Hitachi to purchase Hitachi Semiconductor Singapore
(HNS), which owns and operates an eightinch wafer fabrication facility located in Singapore, for approximately US$233 million in
cash.
NEC Electronics (18,000 persons in Japan)
may shed around 500 staff after announcing
an early retirement programme. The Japanese firm said it had set aside 5 billion yen
($46.4 million) for the program, enough to
compensate about 500 applicants.
Fujitsu will reorganize its LSI business into a
20
April 2008
wholly owned subsidiary, Fujitsu Microelectronics, to be incorporated through a company split on March 21, 2008.
International Rectifier announced the election, effective March 1, 2008, of Oleg
Khaykin, 43, as President and Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Donald Dancer, who
has served as acting Chief Executive Officer
since August 30, 2007.
Power-One has appointed Richard J.
Thompson to serve as the company's chief
executive officer. He succeeds William T.
Yeates, who has resigned from the company
and its Board of Directors to pursue other
interests.
Global sales of chipmaking equipment fell
10.2% in December from a year before to
3,710.47 million dollars, the third straight
month of decrease, so the SEAJ. Sales in
Japan fell 10.4% to 803.69 million dollars
and those in Taiwan skidded 7.4% to 910.92
million dollars. Sales in South Korea were
down 28.7% at 513.23 million dollars. Sales
in North America declined 0.6% to 714.20
million dollars and those in Europe tumbled
25.4% to
OPTOELECTRONICS
Matsushita will acquire a 24.9% stake in
Hitachi Displays, a wholly owned Hitachi
subsidiary that makes small and mediumsized LCD panels. As the next step going
forward, Matsushita will also acquire for 66
billion yen some IPS LCD panel-related businesses.
Sony plans to invest 22 billion yen to
strengthen middle and large size OLED
(organic light-emitting diode) panel production technology. In December 2007 Sony
launched the world's first OLED TV
PASSIVE COMPONENTS
Sales of German PCB manufacturers were
down 2.5% in November compared to October, a record month, so the ZVEI/VDL. The
Book-to-bill ratio at 1.01 confirms the positive trend.
OTHER COMPONENTS
Smart Modular Technologies, a manufacturer
of memory modules, embedded computing
subsystems, and TFT-LCD display products,
has signed a definitive agreement to acquire
Adtron, a designer and global supplier of
solid state flash disk drives.
Pendulum Instruments in Stockholm, Swe-
den, announced the acquisition of Rapco
Electronics, a Test & Measurement company
in Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK. Rapco Electronics develops and produces precision
time and frequency products, mainly for use
by governmental, military, telecom, broadcasting and scientific customers.
Cooper Industries announced that its subsidiary, Cooper Controls (U.K.) has acquired
more than 98 percent of MTL Instruments
Group, a company based in the United Kingdom.
DISTRIBUTION
The European semiconductors distribution
market experienced a decline of 6 percent in
the fourth quarter of 2007 at 1.21 Billion
Euro and 1.9 percent in the full year at 5.37
Billion Euro, so DMASS.
Arrow announced a new focus on integrated,
system-level technologies with the creation
of a dedicated, pan-European operation
known as Advanced Embedded Solutions
(AES).
Avnet Time, specialized in interconnect, passive, electromechanical and power supply
products, has extended its franchise agreement with Epcos.
The FBDi, German Association of Component Distribution, has opened itself to potential members from the group of component
manufacturers. The first new member is the
connector specialist FCI. The FBDi has been
in existence since 2004 and comprises 24
component distributors as members.
Texim Europe has entered into an agreement with PerkinElmer Optoelectronics to
sell PerkinElmer's LED solutions products.
Rutronik has received the NEC Electronics
Europe "Distributor 2007" award, becoming
the second company to be awarded the
prize since its inception in 2006.
Farnell has further increased the range of
National Semiconductor products it stocks to
over 2,000 NS parts from the company's
analogue portfolio.
This is the comprehensive power related
extract from the " Electronics IndustryDigest
", the successor of The Lennox Report. For
a full subscription of the report contact:
[email protected] or by fax 44/1494
563503.
www.europartners.eu.com
www.bodospower.com
MARKET
APEC Showcases
Trends in Power
By Linnea Brush, Senior Research Analyst, Darnell Group
The Applied Power Electronics Conference
(APEC) is many things to many people. It is
both conference and trade show; academic
and applied; independent and promotional.
The venue this year – the Austin Convention
Center – was a physical representation of
this diffusion, spread out over a vast facility
with events happening in various locations.
The attendees, however, remain a focused
and earnest group of power electronics
experts who are dealing with an increasingly
complex industry. “Power supplies” is no
longer about just engineering or products or
marketing.
One of the advance “buzzes” was the inclusion of several presentations on patents,
intellectual property and venture capital
investment. These are not the normal
domain of power supply engineers, or even
product managers. But the computer/communications/consumer equipment boom of
the 1990s/2000s introduced many new technologies and many start-ups to exploit them.
Overlap was inevitable. What is more surprising is that it filtered down so quickly to
the power supply level.
Much of this is still a bit esoteric to the APEC
crowd, however. Instead of being controversial, the whole subject of patents was greeted with great seriousness and a desire to
educate. Patents have major legal implications, and everyone at APEC represented a
company of some sort. Still, the interest in
business practices is a welcome addition to
the “applied” mandate of APEC. Along with
patent issues, the Special Presentations
added a “Business” track, along with the traditional “Market Trends” track. The former
included the more unusual topic of “A Perspective on How Wall Street Values Power
Electronics.” The Patent Rap Session also
included an investment firm commenting on
how patents affect the value of a power supply company. In many cases, winning a
patent infringement lawsuit does not
increase the value of a company; instead, it
will lower the value of the company that was
successfully sued.
The technical sessions remained technical,
but some of the more interesting (i.e. commercial) technical developments were taking
place in the exhibit hall. For instance, Tyndall
National Institute and the Power Electronics
22
April 2008
Industry Group Ireland are sponsoring what
is claimed to be “the first International Workshop on Power Supply on Chip,” to be held
September 22-24 in Cork, Ireland. Systemin-package (SiP) and system-on-chip (SoC)
are not new, but they have not really taken
off in the marketplace. The conference
organizers believe that, “the proliferation of
functionally integrated hardware solutions
can be seen as an inflection point in the
power supply industry, which is seeing a dramatic move away from traditional power supply manufacturing to an increasing emphasis
on power supply products deriving directly
from semiconductor and microelectronics
products and technologies.”
Tyndall Institute has introduced what it considers to be an “enabling” technology for
SoC, which allows inductors to be miniaturized and integrated in-package or on-chip
along with power devices and control circuitry. The technology has been developed for
application in low-power switching converters, such as those used in battery-operated
devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, and
so on. Has the time come for SoC? The
workshop has a program committee that
includes Fairchild Semiconductor, NXP
Semiconductors, and Intel. Supposedly,
many other companies have development
“under wraps.”
A couple of companies introduced products
that illustrate some of these new packaging
trends. NXP Semiconductors announced a
new range of low-power MOSFET devices
housed in what is described as one of the
world’s smallest packages, the SOT883.
Boasting an ultra-small 1.0 x 0.6mm footprint, NXP’s SOT883 MOSFETs are said to
deliver power dissipation and performance
comparable to SOT23, while occupying only
14% of the printed circuit board space.
Infineon introduced the new OptiMOS™2
and OptiMOS™3, which use a combination
of the lowest available on-state resistance in
comparable packages and lowest gate drive
requirements.
OptiMOS utilizes CanPAK™ 30V MOSFETs
and features excellent switching performance. They help to increase power density in
the application and, consequently, save
energy. The OptiMOS series offers design
engineers the potential to achieve the “low-
est” on-state resistance technology in all
standard power package; the lowest figure of
merit Ron x Qg and Ron x Qgd; and high
immunity to dynamic turn-on. CanPAK S-size
and M-size are “currently in production” and
use DirectFET ® technology licensed from
International Rectifier.
Advanced planar magnetics were also featured at APEC this year. Planar Quality
Corp.’s (PQC) proprietary planar inductors
are used as differential chokes in most
power topologies in variety of applications.
Among those are single or multi-winding filtering chokes in industrial and commercial
off-line power supplies, as well as in military
dc-dc converters. Other applications include
EMI differential filter stages, power inductors
for nonisolated topologies such as buck,
boost, buck-boost and others. PQC inductors utilize the same advanced geometry
cores, patent pending SMD packages, heavy
copper planar windings and flexible tab technology as their transformers. Benefits of
PQC planar inductors include small size,
high quality, reliability, repeatability, and
superior thermal management, according to
the company.
ICE Components offers the ICL701-1 that
uses IKOR’s coupled inductor technology to
solve the trade-off between efficiency and
elimination of bulk capacitors by “dramatically lowering the voltage regulator module output inductance while using industry-standard
components and relatively low switching frequencies. Champs Technologies has a standard design series of planar magnetics that
can be integrated into dc-dc converters. The
PL18 Series 5-100W has power rated to
100W forward topology; with a maximum
height of 6.5mm, a footprint of 18.3mm x
19.2 max; and frequency range of 200kHz to
1MHz.
Digital control is becoming mainstream, but
companies still have lots of room to market
innovative products. Zilker Labs is extending
the efficiency of its Digital-DC™ product family by including new proprietary, performance-maximizing algorithms that dynamically
optimize the efficiency as operating conditions change, with no interaction or additional components required. These new algorithms result in a full-load efficiency improvement up to 3% and a light-load efficiency
www.bodospower.com
increase greater than 15% in typical applications, reducing peak
power dissipation by up to 20% and increasing the overall performance of embedded computing, storage, and telecom/datacom applications, according to the company. This ability enables the ZL2006
and ZL2004 to help meet Energy Star efficiency guidelines, which
become progressively more difficult each year.
Analog Devices, Inc. introduced a digital power controller developed
specifically for power design engineers designing ac-to-dc and isolated dc-to-dc power supplies used in high-reliability server, storage,
and communications infrastructure equipment. ADI’s ADP1043 digital
pulse-width modulation power control and management device provides designers with a highly integrated circuit architecture and the
flexibility to configure system power-supply parameters in a matter of
minutes using an intuitive graphical user interface.
Next year’s APEC is going to be in Washington DC. I wonder if this
augers another expansion – into the political realm. Is a power supply
lobby overdue? Europe is a highly regulation environment, but the
US resists such efforts. Based on the APEC plenary speaker from
Rockwell, there is lots of resistance to such regulations, but power
supply companies could find benefit in working together, the way
EPSMA does.
Such cooperative efforts don’t always work, though. One APEC
attendee wondered what had happened to all the “alliances” that
flourished just a few years ago, such as the Point-of-Load Alliance
(POLA) and the Distributed-power Open Standards Alliance (DOSA).
We haven’t heard much from these groups recently – What are they
doing? Are they still around?
www.Darnell.com
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Looking for a capacitor that is
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Tel: 44 (0)1978 853805 Fax: 44 (0)1978 853785
Email: sales@ icwltd.co.uk Web: www.icwltd.co.uk
April 2008
23
COVER STORY
Prime(PACK) Time for SCALE-2
New Plug & Play driver for PrimePACK modules plus a look into
planar transformer gate drivers.
Two distinctively different gate driver solutions are presented that both have one mission:
to make power designer’s life a little less complicated. Each driver relies on the highly
integrated SCALE-2 chipset for fast and dependable signal transmission. The PrimePACK
driver family offers easy to use control for today’s power electronics systems – whereas
planar transformer technology might break new ground in the near future.
By Sascha Pawel, Jan Thalheim, Olivier Garcia and Michael Reckhard,
CT-Concept Technologie AG, Switzerland
Part I: PrimePACK Gate Driver
Now, the Plug & Play series is extended to
the rapidly growing 1200V / 1700V
PrimePACK family of IGBT half bridge modules. Based on the recently introduced
SCALE-2 chip technology [1] the drivers
benefit from high integration level, very low
delay times of 100ns, and practically instantaneous error feedback in less than 1μs.
Figure 1 shows a picture of a 2SD421
PrimePACK driver variant. The schematic of
the driver is shown in Figure 2.
All PrimePACK drivers feature up to 4W output power per channel, 20A maximum gate
drive current, 3.3V to 15V compatible interface logic, and unlimited duty cycle range
from 0% to 100%. The IGBT is turned on
Figure 1 2SD421 PrimePACK Plug & Play
driver mounted onto the module (Number
and type of the gate resistors are being
adjusted to output power and peak current.)
24
April 2008
with regulated +15V
supply. An unregulated
-10V rail is employed in
the turn-off path.
Advanced active clamping aids performance
optimization of the
IGBT module. Both
direct mode and a module-specific half bridge
mode with automatic
cross current interlock
are supported – and
last but surely not least,
great emphasis has
been placed on highly
reproducible signal
transmission with a
measured delay time jitter of less than +/-2ns.
VDD1
+DC-Link
Vdd
iVce
VDD
ActClamp
VDD1
Channnel 1
GND
Vdd
INP
AUXGH
vgxx
TRPA
VDD1
Rg1(on)
GH
INN
INA
GL
TRNA
iref
INB
Rg1(off)
AUXGL
VDD
VSS1
Rref1
ref
Ondelay-HBmode
VSS1
VDD1
Vss
VSS1
Vee
DCDC1
SOB
VSS1
VSS1 VDD1
SOA
Load
DCDC2
VDD2
tb
VSS2
GND
VDD2
GND
Vdd
f
iVce
ActClamp
TRPB
iref
VDD2
Vss
GND
TRNB
INP
Isolation Barrier
Power system designers are more and more
under pressure to deliver highly optimized
solutions in short design cycles. This situation can be considerably eased by dedicated
gate drivers which are already fully customized to the IGBT module in question.
CONCEPT’s Plug & Play driver series is
successfully serving this steadily growing
demand since 1999.
AUXGH
vgxx
VDD2
Rg2(on)
GH
Channnel 2
INN
GL
Rg2(off)
iref
AUXGL
Rref2
VSS2
ref
VSS2
Vss
VSS2
Vee
VSS2 VDD2
-DC-Link
Figure 2 Schematic of the 2SD421 half bridge driver for
PrimePACK modules
tors and other non-isolated switching converters.
Custom-Specific Design Options
However, great care needs to be taken to
A great variety of design options can be
ensure safety and long time reliability of the
implemented for future modules and special
HV insulation inside the PCB. Especially the
customer requests. Fiber optic interfaces
behaviour of the board material under
serve physically large systems. The placeapplied HV bias and environmental stress
ment of the transformer block at the rear
has to be considered. In the following secside of the PCB allows for the power termition, we discuss the current development
nals to be tapped across the driver PCB.
status of a 1.7kV SCALE-2 gate driver using
Secondary side error input and dv/dt control
planar transformers.
make the SCALE-2 driver even more flexible
with respect to innovative system design.
HV Board Reliability
FR4 board substrate is a composite material
Part II: Planar Integration
that quite naturally lends itself to HV insulaThere is tremendous potential for increased
tion. It consists of woven glass fiber strands
power density and manufacturing automation
embedded in an epoxy resin matrix. Freshly
when planar transformers are adopted. Here
cured FR4 sustains as high as 40kV/mm
the transformer windings are merged into the
dielectric stress. So one could wonder why it
driver PCB (printed circuit board) as shown
isn’t widely used for HV insulation. But like
in Figure 3. The planar concept has already
so many times, the devil is in the details – to
demonstrated its superiority in low voltage
be more precise: in the aging behavior of the
designs such as POL (point of load) regula-
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All the power you need...
Fo r a b e t t e r e n v i r o n m e n t
Motor Control
Mitsubishi, a leading manufacturer of Power Modules, offers a
variety of products like IGBT Module, Intelligent Power Module
(IPM), DIP-CIB and DIP-IPM for a wide range of Industrial Motor
Control applications. Covering a drive range from 0.4 kW to
several 100 kW, the RoHS compliant modules with the latest
chip and production technologies ensure the best efficiency
and the highest reliability. The easy to use features, compact
size and mechanical compatibility with previous generations
make the offered products more attractive on the market.
[email protected] · www.mitsubishichips.com
Please visit us: PCIM 2008, Hall 12, Stand 421
COVER STORY
insulation characteristics.
Figure 3 Planar transformer 1.7kV gate
driver delivering 22W output power at 44 x
74 mm2, delay time 100ns, switching frequency DC to 250kHz (all data valid for
unforced convection)
Conductive Anodic Filaments
The other degradation mechanism is specific
to fiber reinforced insulation materials such
as FR4. It leads to the growth of conductive
anodic filaments (CAF) between HV traces.
CAF is a known phenomenon since its first
detailed analysis in the mid 1970’s, yet the
exact growth mechanism and its kinetics are
still not fully clear today.
A conductive filament progresses along
glass fibers where the bond between glass
and epoxy resin has been weakened. This
can happen because of thermal cycling
stress, mechanical stress such as hole
drilling and board flexing, and it is strongly
advanced by high levels of humidity. Below a
certain relative humidity threshold ranging
from 50% to 75% [2] [3], there is no CAF
growth at all. Above this threshold, hydrolysis of the glass fiber surface creates a path
26
April 2008
*++ ,
-
There are mainly two effects which threaten
the HV planar concept. The first one is the
degradation of dielectric strength due to
temperature cycles, corrosive agents and
mechanical fatigue. This situation is common
to all solid insulation materials. It can be
controlled by applying generous derating of
the maximum sustainable dielectric stress.
We used derating margins well above a factor of ten. Under these conditions the planar
HV transformer shows slower degradation
than a conventional wire-wound ring core
transformer. Our test criterion is the shift of
the partial discharge extinction voltage versus temperature cycles for a group of planar
transformers and a reference group of conventional resin-molded ring core transformers. This method allows repeated nondestructive testing and is considered the
gold standard for insulation testing. Figure 4
shows the test results. The stability of the
planar FR4 insulation is even more notable
as the reference group consisted of series
production components with a proven application life time of more than 15 years.
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Figure 4 Accelerated ageing behavior of planar and wire-wound transformers
for the electrochemical reaction that forms
CAF. Copper is dissolved at the anode and
transported towards the cathode in the form
of an aqueous solution of copper salts.
These copper salts are deposited along the
glass fiber in a complex equilibrium reaction
involving the electric field, capillary and diffusion forces, pH value, and reactants from the
PCB material [4] [5] [6]. Fig. 5 shows an
illustration of CAF growth between two HV
traces.
Until now, CAF has mostly been studied with
emphasis on highly integrated PCBs for
telecommunication installations or server
backplanes. For HV insulation, however, the
focus needs to be shifted from small to wide
insulation barriers and form voltages in the
tens of volts to more than one kilovolt.
We have therefore conducted CAF testing
under 1500V DC bias in highly accelerating
climate of 85°C and 85% relative humidity
(rH). In the first design-of-experiment test,
we used standard FR4 and standard layer
buildup to ascertain the CAF severity for
conventional PCBs. Fig. 6 shows examples
of lateral CAF in the xy direction on the
PCB. The filaments grew to more than 7mm
in the test and eventually they short-circuited
the supply traces. Consequently the test had
to be stopped after 730h. Vertical CAF
between stacked power planes has also
been observed. A standard layer buildup
failed after as short as 80h. Its improved
counterpart using several insulation layers
withstand the whole test and did not fail until
the final 730h. The improvement factor
between standard layer buildup and improved HV buildup is thus 9 times or larger.
For the second test step, we used halogen
free, low CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion) FR4 material to determine the improvement factor between standard FR4 and upto-date high performance FR4. The results
are shown in Figure 7 in the form of a
Weibull net. Two groups of eight samples
each were tested in parallel. One group (A)
Figure 5 Formation of conductive filaments
in FR4 material (schematic)
has been processed with a minimum thermal
budget (optimization, no rework) and the
other group (B) has undergone two additional SMD reflow cycles. It can be seen that
both the characteristic lifetime and the
Weibull slope parameter are influenced by
the thermal budget. Group B shows a slope
parameter of 2.6. The characteristic lifetime
is 590 hours. The relatively low slope parameter is an indication of thermally induced failure spots in the PCB material when compared to group A’s slope of 6.2. The steeper
slope indicates a more pronounced wear-out
behavior which is typical for a degradation
process that needs a certain time span to
become effective.
Two dashed curves A* and B* are shown in
Figure 7. They correspond to the results of
the CAF test groups A and B, combined with
the previously determined improvement factors for optimized layer buildup. The area
between these curves A* and B* marks the
expected failure range for the finally optimized design of the HV insulation layer. No
failure data is presently available for the final
design. The CAF test is continued and the
first failure can be expected between 2000
hours and 8000 hours. We are currently
evaluating further controlled acceleration of
the tests by higher voltages up to 3000V.
The question still remains how many hours
of real-life application correspond to 1000h
of accelerated CAF testing. A large variety of
different testing schemes are used through-
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COVER STORY
Figure 6 Standard FR4 PCB after 730h CAF testing at 1500V, 85°C and 85% rH
out the industry to assure CAF resistance in
the field.
· Many OEMs adopt the CAF test developed
by Sun Microsystems which incorporates
500h testing at 85°C / 85% rH [7] [10].
· EIA/JEDEC standard A101-B specifies
testing at 85°C / 85% rH for 1000h.
· The widely used test to Telcordia (ex BellCORE) GR-78-CORE dictates 65°C, 85%
rH (min.) for 500h.
· UL standard 796, section 23 (cited after
[8]), requires 1344 hours testing at 35°C
and 87.5% rH.
· IPC-TM-650 states a dedicated CAF test in
section 2.6.25. The environmental conditions of 85°C and 87% rH are applied for
500 or 1000 hours.
New data is to be expected from the iNEMI
halogen-free project which is still under
investigation [9]. So far the most comprehensive treatment of CAF lifetime mapping has
been published by IPC in the user guide to
the test standard IPC-TM-650 2.6.25 [11].
This document is the most accepted basis
for CAF lifetime testing in the electronics
industry. It states that a component which is
tested to IPC-TM-650 2.6.25 (85°C, 87% rH)
over 1000 hours should yield less than 20%
failures in the CAF test to achieve 20 years
life with 95% of the devices. ·
From our own field data we know that lateral
CAF such as shown in Figure 6 (730h CAF
test) does not occur in real life applications
after more than 15 years. Judging from all
this data, our 1000h, 85°C, 85% rH CAF test
at 1500V DC bias is a very harsh qualification criterion.
The expected Weibull curves A* and B* in
Figure 7 for the final design run significantly
lower than IPC’s 20% criterion at 1000h test
time. The estimated intersection with the
1000h time step is lower than 1.3% for the
newly developed planar HV transformer. This
would translate into roughly 0.4% failures
after 20 years. These results are very promising for a new generation of high-performance gate drivers combining the versatile
SCALE-2 chipset and the novel planar HV
insulation platform. Actual CAF test data for
the final design must now prove the estimated behavior based on current CAF test
results. Because of the very high target reliability level, the final CAF test must be performed over more than 3000 hours to
account for the confidence intervals of the
Weibull fit. It is important to note that not just
single parameters, such as material and
layer buildup influence CAF resistance – the
whole process chain from board material to
component placement and soldering has to
be optimized and controlled.
Summary
Two very distinct gate drive solutions have
been presented. Both use the highly integrated SCALE-2 chipset, yet the embodiments of the HV insulation are fundamentally
different.
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Planar integration of the HV insulation into
the driver PCB is an extremely promising
approach. The novel reliability-focused planar design has yielded vastly improved CAF
resistance. This opens the door for planar
insulation in the 1700V class and beyond.
In contrast, the PrimePACK driver presented
here uses tried and tested ring core transformers. It fills the need for a dedicated gate
driver tailored to the successful PrimePACK
IGBT module series. As a member of CONCEPT’s Plug & Play driver family the driver
is ready to operate out-of-the-box, with no
development effort necessary at the customer side.
www.IGBT-Driver.com
References
[1] J. Thalheim, H. Rüedi, “Universal Chipset for
IGBT and Power MOSFET Gate Drivers”, Proc.
PCIM Europe Conference, Nuremberg, 2007
[2] J. Augis, D. DeNure, M. LuValle, M. Mitchell
et al., “A Humidity Threshold for Conductive
Anodic Filaments in Epoxy Glass Printed Wiring
Boards”, 3rd Int. SAMPE Symposium and
Exposition Proceedings, pp. 1023-1030, 1989
[3] M. Pecht, H. Ardebili, A. Shukla, J. Hagge,
D. Lennings, “Moisture Ingress Into Organic
Laminates”, IEEE Trans. Components and
Packaging Technology, Vol. 22, No. 1, March,
1999
[4] A. Brewin, L. Zou, C. Hunt, “Susceptibility of
Glass-Reinforced Epoxy Laminates to Conductive Anodic Filamentation”, NPL Report
MATC(A)155, January, 2004
[5] W. J. Ready, “Reliability Investigation of
Printed Wiring Boards Processed with Water
Soluble Flux Constituents”, PhD Dissertation,
Georgia Institute of Technology, July, 2000
[6] K. L. Rogers, “An Analytical and Experimental Investigation of Filament Formation in
Glass/Epoxy Composites”, PhD Dissertation,
University of Maryland, 2005
[7] L. Gulia, F. Hickmann, B. Forcier, “Multilayer
Material Technology for Improved Signal Integrity in the Region Above 5GHz”, CircuiTree Magazine, September, 2001
[8] D. Cullen, G. O'Brien, ”Implementation of
Immersion Silver PCB Surface Finish in Compliance with Underwriter Laboratories”, IPC Printed Circuits Expo, SMEMA Council APEX, 2004
[9] M. Newton, D. Towne, “iNEMI Revised SOW
Environmentally Conscious Electronics TIG,
Halogen-Free Project”, Approval draft, 2007
[10] B. Neves, “Setup, Procedures, and Patterns for CAF and ECM Testing”, PC-FAB, April,
2002
[11] IPC 9691A, “User Guide for the IPC-TM650 2.6.25, Conductive Anodic Filament (CAF)
Resistance Test (Electrochemical Migration
Testing)”, August, 2007
Figure 7 Weibull plot of CAF test data after 1450h
www.bodospower.com
April 2008
27
P O W E R S U P P LY
Platform Power Design for
Future Satellite Savings
Mx design platform for space-grade DC-DC converters
Growth in consumer demand for satellite-based services is placing pressure on costs and
turnaround times in the space industry. A new switching converter platform satisfying all
the performance and documentation requirements for space applications will help constructors respond, by streamlining the design of the power infrastructure.
By Tiva Bussarakons, International Rectifier, Aerospace and Defense
Speeding up design
Hundreds of new satellites
are being launched every
year, to satisfy rapidly growing
demands for services such as
personal navigation, broadband multimedia, HDTV,
weather data and earth observation. To reduce satellite
build times and offer competitive prices, major American,
European and Asian constructors are implementing modular, platform-based designs.
However components such as
DC-DC converters are often
still designed individually,
since there are no standards
governing satellite power buses, and most companies use a proprietary architecture to support special features and differentiate
designs. Power bus voltages of leading commercial satellite platforms, for example, range from 22V up to 100V.
The power infrastructure for a satellite is responsible for regulating
the charge from the solar panels and delivering the required voltages
and power to all the payload and system equipment. Most of the subsystems connected to the satellite’s power bus have a unique
input/output voltage range and individual requirements for dynamic
behaviour. They also tend to have customised tele-command (TC)
and telemetry (TLM) interfaces. In practice, no two DC-DC converters
are alike.
cycle for power converters,
with significant implications
for cost and scheduling. Typical delivery lead time for flight
models (FM) may range from
12 to 18 months, or longer in
some instances, depending
on complexity and last minute
changes in requirements. In
practice these deliverable
documents and requirements
for program review and
design review meetings often
become the pacing items
when design changes occur.
Platform design and flexibility
To solve these challenges and accelerate the design and build of
new satellites, International Rectifier has proposed the Mx design
platform for space-grade DC-DC converters. The platform can be
quickly adapted to meet most satellite input and output power
requirements up to 15W. There is also adequate design margin to
accommodate slightly higher combined output power if necessary.
The platform is developed specifically for sensitive onboard RF
equipment, such as receivers, transmitters, beacons, low noise
amplifiers (LNAs), and up/down converters.
In addition to the workload involved in designing and building each
converter individually, meeting space program requirements for qualification and documentation is also highly labour-intensive and timeconsuming. Activities typically include preliminary/critical design
review meetings, thermal analysis, stress analysis, reliability analysis,
worst case analysis, failure mode effect analysis, radiation susceptibility analysis, acceptance and qualification test procedures/reports,
monthly program reports, updated program schedule, weekly status
update, and other dedicated program-management functions.
Meeting all of these requirements creates a lengthy development
28
April 2008
Figure 1: Example of the MB Platform assembly
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2008
International Exhibition
& Conference for
POWER ELECTRONICS
INTELLIGENT MOTION
POWER QUALITY
27 – 29 May 2008
Exhibition Centre Nuremberg
Power On!
Mesago
PCIM
Organizer:
Mesago PCIM GmbH
Rotebühlstraße 83-85
D-70178 Stuttgart
Exhibition:
Linda Heinemann
Tel. +49 711 61946-56
E-Mail:
[email protected]
Conference:
Lisette Hausser
Tel. +49 711 61946-85
E-Mail:
[email protected]
P O W E R S U P P LY
The design topology allows different bus
voltages to be accommodated using simple
component changes in the primary section.
While triple-output designs are common for
most applications, the platform can easily be
configured to accommodate any number of
Figure 2: Design Topology for both the MA and MB platform
The platform includes TC/TLM design that
can be readily adapted to most major satellite interface requirements. There is also a
hold-up capacitor bank and electrical circuitry to ensure proper turn-on and turn-off timing among the outputs, and to provide the
critical biasing sequence for GaAs FET
devices commonly used for RF power amplifiers.
There are two standard assembly outlines:
the MA platform for output power up to 5W,
and the MB platform with a slightly larger
outline for output power up to 15W. Openboard PCB-style construction supports
adapting and changing of designs as needed. Figure 1 shows an example of the MB
platform assembly.
Design simulation tools and design analysis
templates are also available, to help designers quickly and accurately predict performance and design trade-offs, and evaluate
design changes with a high level of confidence. The platform offers RF equipment
designers the ability to react and incorporate
last-minute design adjustments with very little or no impact to the programme schedule.
Figure 2 illustrates the design topology for
both the MA and MB platforms. The differences between the two designs are concerned with the primary power stage, power
transformer and output rectification scheme,
and are highlighted as shaded blocks.
Outputs 1 and 2 are typically designated as
positive outputs. Each output begins turn-on
only after Output 3 (negative output) reaches
its regulation band. A capacitor bank with
sufficient energy storage capacity is added
preceding Output 3 to ensure adequate holdup time for Output 3 to maintain regulation
until Outputs 1 and 2 decay to a safe-level
nearing 0V during a power-down sequence.
outputs – limited only by the total combined
output power requirements. The outputs can
also support a broad voltage/current range.
Design Topology
Both the MA and MB designs include two
voltage regulation stages, one in the primary
and one in the secondary. Regulation in the
primary uses current-mode control topology
to maximise efficiency. This also offers inherent current regulation and primary over-current protection. Regulation in the primary is
built around a standard PWM controller with
known performance characteristics in the targeted radiation environments. Voltage regulation is performed on the internal 10V sup-
Parameter
Input DC-bus voltage
Protection mechanisms
No-load operation
ply via a bootstrap winding of the power
transformer. Upon power-up, an internal 10V
linear regulator governs all of the primary circuitry, including PWM controller and gate
driver. The internal 10V supply takes over all
biasing responsibility after regulation is
achieved.
The primary input circuitry is galvanically isolated from the secondary output via a power
transformer. Secondary voltages of the
transformer are stepped down, rectified and
filtered to feed downstream output regulators. Independent linear voltage regulators
regulate all outputs, and have inherently
high noise and regulation performance. The
use of discrete components with a bipolar
transistor as a pass element minimises voltage headroom and maximises efficiency.
The regulator circuit is a proprietary design
that has been used successfully for many
design applications. Extremely low output
noise and high conducted susceptibility (CS)
rejection are possible with the dual-stage
regulation scheme. Guaranteed end of life
(EOL) performances for voltage accuracy
and regulation can be demonstrated through
worst-case and ageing design analysis.
5W and 15W Designs
While both the MA and MB platforms use the
same basic design topology, there are some
Performance
Electrical
28V unregulated; 50V, 70V, 100V regulated
Input under-voltage protection, overload and short-circuit
protection
No-load operation will not cause excessive over voltage or
damage
65 to 75% depending on input DC bus and output voltage
Efficiency
EMC - Conducted emission on
<1 mVrms, frequency domain of 100Hz – 50 MHz
output
EMC – Conducted emission on 0 - 100 KHz: 80 dbμArms
input
100 KHz – 10 MHz: -20 dB/dec
10 MHz – 50 MHz: 40 dBμArms
EMC – Conducted
>90 dB for Iout >500 mA
susceptibility
>100 dB for Iout ” 500 mA.
Primary power sine wave injection of 2 Vp-p, 100 Hz – 50
MHz.
Lifetime
15 years minimum in orbit
18 years design life time for ageing
Reliability
<180 FIT at 60ºC per MIL-HDBK-217F, Notice F2, based on
0.035FIT for soldering and crimp and dissipated power is
used instead of rated power for MOSFETs
Mechanical & environmental properties
Temperature
Mass
Vibration
Shock
Acceptance: -20ºC to +75ºC
Qualification: -25ºC to +85ºC
Cold Start:
-40ºC
Non-Operating: -40ºC to +85ºC
MA: 75 grams max.
MB: 130 grams max.
Meets typical launch requirements
Meets typical launch requirements
Table 1: Key generic performance for MA and MB converter design
30
April 2008
www.bodospower.com
P O W E R S U P P LY
differences in the power train designs. The MA platform uses a single
switch flyback power stage with traditional flyback transformer and
simple output rectification/filter design configuration. This simplifies
the converter design to minimise component count and size.
To support output power requirements above 5V, the MB platform
incorporates a patented Hy-bridge rectifier topology and integrated
magnetic, in conjunction with a two-switch half-bridge power stage to
maximise efficiency. Unlike the traditional method of rectification the
proprietary Hy-bridge rectifier arrangement yields only one voltage
drop, which reduces output rectification losses and increases efficiency. Both the single-switch flyback and two-switch half-bridge can easily accommodate a wide range of input voltages.
Table 1 summarises key generic performance parameters for MA and
MB converter designs.
Input Filter
The Mx platform also includes an input filter design that yields very
low reflected line noise and is able to satisfy EMI/EMC requirements
of most major satellite power buses. While the design will change to
accommodate different input bus voltages, changing the filter components has very little or no impact on the assembly layouts.
As far as provisions for telemetry are concerned, the TC/TLM interface is designed to accommodate a standard high-level pulse command. A latching relay provides the necessary isolation. The telemetry ON/OFF status is bi-level, and the TC/TLM interfaces are isolated
from one another and from any other functional and input/output terminals within the converter. Temperature telemetry is available and
can be included as required.
Mechanical Design, Assembly Outlines and Cooling
The MA and MB assembly outline designs take into account all the
changes in component footprints due to the deviations in input and
output requirements, so that the established PCB layouts and dimensions can normally be maintained for most design applications.
Milestone Event
Time after receipt of order
Kick-Off Meeting
1 week
Initial design (ICD, I/F, etc.)
1 month
Detailed Design
2 months
Preliminary Design Review (PDR)
2½ months
Internal Elegant Breadboard (EBB)
3 months
EM/EQM Delivery
5½ months
Critical Design Review (CDR)
6 months
Manufacturing and Test Readiness
7 months
Review
FM delivery, 1st Unit
for customized transformer
10 customized samples
8-days-service free of charge
Including datasheet & test report
Rapid prototyping
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holes allow the assembly to be fastened to host equipment or to a
higher level assembly. These holes are also used to conduct heat
from the assembly, to help meet cooling requirements.
Platform-based project schedule
The Mx platform allows engineers to reach the Elegant Breadboard
(EBB) stage for engineering evaluations within three months. Delivery
of FM hardware with complete SDRL items can be expected in about
eight months. Table 2 shows a typical program-milestone schedule
for an Mx converter.
Conclusion
The conventional approach to designing and building DC-DC converters for a new satellite can take many months; yet these items
make up only a small part of the overall project.
8 months
Table 2: Typical program-milestone schedule for an Mx converter
The assemblies are open-board PCB-style construction using a combination of thru-hole and surface mount components. MA outline
dimensions are 85.0mm length x 61.0mm width x 19.5mm height,
with corresponding dimensions of 152.4mm x 50.8mm x 18.0mm for
the MB assembly. The electrical interface is achieved via solderable
terminals for the MA series and a combination of sub-D connector
and solderable terminals for the MB series. On-board mounting
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24h sample service
A platform for space-grade power converter design has been introduced, including a standardised board layout and cooling provision,
simplified component selection and easy completion of supporting
documentation to ease compliance activities. Crucially, the platform
also provides the flexibility that designers need to satisfy proprietary
specifications for the satellite power bus and converter input/output
characteristics.
www.irf.com
April 2008
31
POWER MODULES
Electric Power Steering Modules
A safety relevant application
EPS systems often are subjected to a 120°C ambient under-the-hood environment.
Specific mission profiles (e.g. “driving school circuit”) and are a special strain for the
thermal design of an EPS control unit. These factors describe a very demanding current
and temperature profile for the PWM inverter power stage.
By Dr. Rüdiger Bredtmann, Klaus Olesen, Dr. Frank Osterwald,
Danfoss Silicon Power GmbH, Schleswig, Germany and Prof. Dr. Ronald Eisele,
University of Applied Sciences, Kiel, Germany
Traditional discrete assemblies often exceed physical limitations and
do not offer the reliability needed. In thermally dynamic applications,
such as EPS, discrete semiconductors often suffer from limited silicon die size, direct Cu-bonding, CTE-mismatch and insufficient cooling. The bottleneck of discretes is not the silicon allowing junction
temperatures of 175°C, but the bonding and joining technologies to
connect and cool the MOSFET dies.
Special semiconductor power modules, e.g. comprising of six transistors, current- and temperature-sense, can overcome these limitations. They provide the reliability needed to survive the whole automotive lifecycle of up to 20 years. A range of special module packages is suitable for EPS applications and will be described in this article. Three proven architectures are part of the solution matrix:
Bare-die assemblies on ceramic substrates; Cu-baseplate modules
with bondable frame or Transfer-molded modules
Applications and market requirements
One decade ago the first electric power steering systems were introduced into the market. The initial designs were still hydraulically
amplified steering systems, but a DC motor drove the hydraulic
pump.
The following fundamental market trends can be derived:
PM-Motors / AC drives substitute DC drives.
Integrated ECUs substitute separate ECUs.
EPS / EHPS grows from compact cars to heavier class C / D / E and
SUV segments and power ratings are increasing.
More severe operating conditions (temperature) for power stage,
while focus on safety and reliability remains on highest level.
For a new generation of cars with hybrid-electric drivetrain or startstop system an electric power steering is compulsive.
Additional comfort / safety features like superimposed steering and
rear wheel steering will require high-power electric actuation.
A fundamental scope is on finding the right trade-off between cost,
performance and the imperative reliability.
Globally, about 10 major steering system suppliers of are working on
electric power steering. They rely on a couple of experienced partners specializing in customized electronic components.
32
April 2008
Power Electronic Requirements
The design of an electronic control (ECU) unit for power steering systems starts with a careful description of the mission profile and environment of operation.
The fundamental difference between a direct drive EPS and a pumpoperated EHPS is, that true servo application EPS puts a higher current- and temperature-cycling profile on the power stage of its control
unit.
The designer of an ECU must blend these external requirements with
space and cost constraints in the control unit. To survive the
described harsh test and operating conditions, a proper thermal management of the device is highly relevant.
Dedicated power modules allow to increase power density and can
dissipate up to 10 W / cm². Alongside, they can be designed to take
the strong thermal cycling loads coming for the extensive servo operation.
Solution Overview Power Modules:
Bare DBC Substrates
The most simplistic PWM-power-stage can be demonstrated by a
populated DBC-substrate. These substrates typically comprise a
MOSFET six-pack to drive a three phase motor. MOSFETs are typically soldered with a virtually void-free alloy, that gives sufficient
headroom between maximum operating temperature and the solder
melting temperature.
The proven Al2O3-Substrates with a thermal expansion coefficient of
7-8 ppm/k are matching well with a silicon die of about 3 ppm/k.
Ceramic substrates provide excellent isolation up to several thousand
volts and are good heat conductors. The thick and homogenous Cucoating on the DBC’s front and backside provides a good temperature distribution, lateral spreading and very low ohmic losses.
Compared to usual 100 μm thickfilm-copper-glas-paste hybrids the
electrical conductivity of a DBC is about 6 times higher.
In addition, MOSFET semiconductors can be generously covered
with a maximum of large-wire bonds in order to minimize ohmic losses and unwanted heat dissipation by eliminating hotspots.
Unlike the simplistic nature of this device, its assembly is slightly
more complicated than other alternatives.
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The pre-soldered DBC-substrates have to be glued on a heath sink
under very controlled conditions. Thermal conductivity of the glue
layer and its physical coherence are vital to the overall thermal performance. After the glue is temperature-cured, the DBC can be connected to the external control- and power-contacts with large-wire
bonding. Finally, the device has to be protected with a silicon-gel
cover on open dies and bond-feet. These processes require an
above-average precision and cleanliness compared to standard electronic assemblies.
Cu-baseplate modules with bondable frame
A more sophisticated and extended version of the bare DBC is a
power module with added copper baseplate and a bondable frame
for external electrical connection of the power-stage.
Figure 1: EPS Power module with Cu-baseplate and bondable frame
Here, the DBC is thermally linked to a Cu-plate by a large-area solder layer. The copper now helps to buffer and to spread heat dissipated by the MOSFET dies.
An external frame allows connecting the module to the external circuit by welding or soldering. The complete housing of semiconductors gives the module additional robustness.
Thermal buffer properties of the Cu-baseplate allow for less rigid
requirements with regard to an even heath sink surface or to the tolerance of the applied thermal interface material (TIM). Overall, the
added module complexity allows for simplified assembly and cost
savings in the periphery.
Power-Module with transfer-molded housing
Discrete and integrated components with a mold resin encapsulation
have a long tradition in electronics.
For superior solutions
in automotive electronics
s !LUMINUMCAPSWITHHIGHVIBRATIONSTABILITY
s 0##WITHVOLUMEFILLFACTORNEARLY
s 0IEZOACTUATORSFORFUELSAVINGINJECTIONSYSTEMS
s !PPLICATIONSPECIFICTEMPERATURESENSORS
s 3-4POWERINDUCTORSUPTOª#
s 3PACESAVINGPOWERTRANSFORMERS
s 3!7COMPONENTSFORTELEMATICS2+%AND40s 3ELFREGULATING04#HEATINGELEMENTS
s 2ELIABLEVARISTORSFOROVERVOLTAGEPROTECTION
With advanced duroplastic materials the industry can today produce
power modules comprising a complete sixpack inverter stage with
MOSFETs or IGBT. Key to these large-scale components is a mold
compound with adapted thermal expansion coefficient CTE as well as
low shrinkage.
The finished mold package is very rigid and allows to easily assembling the modules with standard electronic manufacturing lines.
Two fundamental variants of power modules are available:
A Module comprising a molded DBC together with an integrated leadframe allowing for external contacts. Here, the DBC is both a perfect
isolation for voltage and a thermal interface to the heatsink.
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!PRILTO s (ALL3TAND$
POWER MODULES
A Module comprising of a leadframe only. This layout separates different segments of the leadframe for different circuit potentials. Semiconductors are directly soldered upon the copper surfaces. This leadframe can only be assembled on a heatsink with an electrically isolating layer of glue or thermal interface material. It is basically limited to
low-voltage Mosfet applications.
Reliability Discussion
Designing a power module for “under the hood” applications is a
challenge for several reasons:
First of all the physical environment for the power module is extremely harsh featuring high ambient temperatures (in excess of 100°C, up
to 5-600°C near the exhaust), vibration, humidity, salt mist etc. Secondly because the designer works under a tremendous cost pressure
(the way of life in automotives) meaning that it is a challenge to
afford a sufficient amount of power silicon that would enable a reasonable low thermal resistance. Thirdly because size maters: The
designer is most often required to integrate the power module in an
ECU within a very limited space available; this by the way often rules
out other technical solutions like discretes on IMS.
Thus the design process is based on a number of tradeoffs and compromises, e.g. longer life demands bigger silicon chips but that drives
cost and size the wrong way.
The degradation of power electronic devices under high current densities (consequently high power dissipation) can be traced to several
different load categories:
Continuous operation with small variations in the current profile.
Single short time events with max current demand (period: few seconds).
Groups of load variations over several seconds to minutes.
In automotive application all 3 types of load pattern can be observed.
Most of the power electronic applications are defined by specific load
profiles.
Hydraulic power steering: continuous operation plus groups of load
variations.
Electric power steering groups of load variations of short duration.
Start/Stop systems: Single short time events within 1 second.
Mild hybrids: Single short time events plus groups of load cycles.
Strong hybrids: Mostly continuous operation plus groups of load
cycles interrupted by single events.
Typical failure modes of power modules are to be found in the
assembly of the semiconductors and materials of the thermal stack.
It is possible to dedicate specific failure modes to specific load
cycles:
Bond wire lift-off is caused by current switching between
>0 s and ~3 s.
Die-solder layer is cracked by current load cycles between
~5 s and ~20 s.
Large area solder layer degradation of the substrate is observed for
temperature changes between 600 s to 6,000 s.
Figure 2: The relationship between the number of cycles to failure for
a wire bond and the ΔT.
Wire bond failure
One of the lifetime limiting factors is the wire bond connection; it
turns out that fast temperature cycles (power cycling) create so
called bond wire lift offs. This is caused by the mismatch in the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) between the silicon chip (CTE = 3
ppm/K) and the aluminum bond wire (CTE = 24 ppm/K). As the temperature changes this mismatch will create stresses and strains in
the Si/Al interface which again lead to fatigue cracking. The larger
the temperature swing the fewer cycles to failure. This phenomenon
is well understood and most often modeled using a Coffin & Manson
approach. The chart below shows the relationship between the number of cycles to failure and the size of the temperature swings.
Also seen in the Coffin & Manson chart is the dependency of the
mean temperature around which the temperature swings occur: the
larger the Tm the shorter the life even for the same ΔT; the chart features three sets of test results performed at different mean temperatures (60°C, 80°C and 100°C). This shows that good control of the
mean device temperature is important in the second order: good
cooling reduces the ΔT but also the level, Tm, where it occurs.
Baseplates and large area solder joints
Therefore the semiconductors have to be cooled as effectively as
possible, meaning that the thermal stack, which defines the materials
and geometries from junction to ambient, must be optimized. As an
example designing the power module with a copper baseplate offers
a better thermal performance as shown in the figure below:
The lifetime of a power module is predetermined by the number of
temperature cycles (of a definite temperature swing) a specific thermal stack is capable to survive. All failure modes are heavily accelerated by the level of operating (ambient) temperature: The higher the
ambient temperature, the higher average operating temperature and
the more destructive the failure modes are addressed by the different
load cycles.
Figure 3: Effect of having a copper baseplate.
34
April 2008
www.bodospower.com
POWER MODULES
The baseplate helps spreading the heat over a large area before the
heat passes through the inevitable thermal interface material (TIM)
thus improving things considerably: the thermal resistance and thus
the junction temperature will become lower and life will be longer
because the wire bonds will experience smaller DT’s at lower Tm’s.
Power modules having a baseplate are less sensitive towards the
quality of the TIM, like thermal conductivity, thickness variations and
voids, compared to “DCB-only” modules. Additionally the baseplate
offers a quality of ruggedness to the power module: the delicate DCB
substrate will much less prone to breakage when riding a baseplate.
Introducing the baseplate in the power module does not solve all
problems though, it even creates new problems. The most important
is that the large area solder joint between the DCB substrate and the
baseplate too is damaged by temperature cycles. But whereas the
wire bonds suffer from a large number of fast power cycles, it is the
slow temperature cycles, arising from daily climatic changes combined with cold starts of the car, that threaten the integrity of the large
area solder joint. The failure mode is well understood and it too can
be modeled using Coffin&Manson approaches. An example is shown
in the chart below that shows the relationship between number of
cycles to failure and the size of the solder joint.
ature. This most often demands larger silicon chips and/or an
improved cooling.
If, on the other hand, the power module will survive the loads defined
by the mission profile by too large a margin, the module is thermally
oversized and thus too costly. The thermal stack must be trimmed
down e.g. by reducing silicon area.
The basis for the thermal design approach described above is the
specification; a clear definition of the mission profile is crucial in order
to do an optimum design that will withstand the required load cycles
without being “overkill” and a too costly design.
One of most important information for the module designer is the
number of operating hours and the temperature level. Typically the
demand is 6,000h of operation under varying boundary conditions of
ambient temperature and load induced temperature swings.
Operating Temperaure
Frequency Distribution over Lifetime
45%
40%
35%
No. of cycles to failure Nf
100000
DCB on Cu base plate
h = 0.2 mm, T = 130 K
30%
25%
10000
20%
Al2O3
AlN
15%
1000
10%
upper bound
5%
100
0%
-25
lower bound
40
80
90
100
105
110
115
120
[°C]
10
Figure 5: Operating temperature as frequency distribution of lifetime.
1
0
10
20
30
40
50
Radius from centre of DCB [mm]
Figure 4: The relationship between the size of the DBC substrate and
the number of cycles to failure for a large are solder joint.
It turns out that Nf is inversely proportional to the size (radius) of the
solder joint squared and proportional to the thickness squared. This
means that Nf is quadrupled by doubling the solder thickness but
reduced to ¼th by doubling the size (radius) of the solder joint.
A typical assumption for the ambient temperature is 34% of the operating period is below 85°C, 63% of the time the ambient temperature
is between 80°C and 100°C and only 3% above 100°C
The second step is to define a real or at least realistic load cycle followed by transformations from current profiles into power losses profiles and from there to temperature swings at a given ambient temperature.
Current vs. time
400
Designing for optimum solder joint reliability involves optimizing the
size of the solder joint i.e. length, width and thickness.
300
200
100
I [A]
The mission profile of power steering applications - Requirements
Understanding all the relevant failure mechanisms of the power module assembly and knowing the load conditions that the module will
see during its life of operation, the mission profile, are the keystones
for the most optimum design of the power module.
0
-100
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
-200
-300
-400
The design process is an iterative one: The temperature cycles that
define the mission profile are analyzed individually regarding their
damaging effect on the wire bonds, solder joints etc.; the sum of
these individual damaging effects then form the overall damaging
effect arising from the mission profile.
If it turns out that the power module will fail too soon, e.g. by wire
bond lift off, the thermal design must be improved as to lower the
size of the temperature swings and/or by lowering the mean temper-
36
April 2008
Time [sec]
Figure 6: A logged current profile of an electrical vehicle in movement. Note the negative current during recuperation.
The temperature change by power losses of the device (see Fig. 7)
and ambient temperatures of 80°c to 110°C leads junction temperatures up to 160°C (see Fig. 5) is the critical factor for the degradation.
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POWER MODULES
The following graph indicates the estimation of the frequency distribution of the junction temperature in a power steering module during
6000 hours of operation.
Thermal response
Temperature rise [K]
20
15
10
5
0
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Time [sec]
Figure 7: Thermal response of the junction temperature of a MOSFET of an electric vehicle deducted from the current profile and the
Rth of the power module in the system.
Junction temperature does not exceed 160°C under worst conditions
(lock stop, short circuit, etc. at maximum operating temperature
under the hood). This is called a ‘safe design’.
Junction Temperaure
Frequency Distribution over Lifetime
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
<80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
160
170
180
190
200
210
> 210
[°C]
Figure 8: Junction temperature of a MOSFET power module in a
power steering application. Tj is obtained with operating temperatures
based on Figure 5
Cost drivers
The three different module types have not only different physical
characteristics. They differ in cost as well. To find a proper solution, a
total cost of ownership-calculation can be recommended.
The bare DBC is obviously least in cost. But its assembly process
requires higher investment and / or labor content than the more complex housed variants.
EPS PowerPower-Modules compared
www.bodospower.com
Cu baseplate
Molded Module
Subject
1
Thermal Cycles
high
medium
2 Power density
medium
high
3 Thermal robustness
sensitive
high
high
sophisticated
standard
standard
low
medium
EPS / EHPS
various drives
EHPS, power
management
4 Assembly process
5 Cost
Conclusion
Danfoss Silicon Power is convinced that a reliable and economic
solution will be created holissign of the power module and its application.
Each of these three options has specific advantages. The bare DBC
is a very simplistic approach that has been proven in millions of vehicles. Its limitations stem from the thermal stack and a glue-layer that
can constrain the cooling of semiconductors.
The copper baseplate module can be considered the "silver bullet"
with regard to thermal robustness. No other solution in particular can
equal the thermal robustness and tolerance to variations of the thermal interface together with excellent voltage isolation. A fully molded
power module with copper interface is mechanically very robust. Its
Bare DBC
Recommended
for Application
medium - high
high
low - medium
EPS / EHPS
various drives
Source: Danfoss Research
Figure 9: Evaluation overview
voltage isolation is restricted to the usual 12-Volt range. In contrast,
the thermal buffer capability of a copper leadframe can be superior to
the glued DBC variant.
Now it is the designer's choice to make up their individual evaluation
matrix!
http://siliconpower.danfoss.com
April 2008
37
D E S I G N & S I M U L AT I O N
Designing
Power with
Ease using
Webench®
The recent expansion was the
addition of LED Webench®.
To help power supply development National Semiconductor introduced an online simulation tool named Webench® in the year 1999. Ever since its introduction it has grown in
popularity and mightiness. What was once a tool to aid power management development
exclusively is now supporting a total of eight different product areas.
By Frederik Dostal at National Semiconductor
This article addresses the benefits a power management design
engineer can achieve when using Webench®. It will show the most
recent additions to the simulation environment and also guide
through a high power LED design step by step.
What is Webench all about ?
One of the unique things about Webench is that it is free and there is
no need to install any software. This makes it easy for design engineers to just take a quick look without any commitment or special
licensing. After a relatively short investment of their time, users can
decide for themselves what kind of help this simulation environment
can give to them.
The Webench tool consists of four steps:
The first one is to choose a part. Here the selection of the best suitable IC for the user’s specification is performed. The system is suggesting parts that fit the requirements in general and the user can
make the final selection based on his preferences.
The second step is to create a design. Here an electrical design is
being created for the user suiting his requirements. In this step also
basic operating values are computed.
In the third step, the design is analyzed. This is when Webench® is
actually electrically simulating the design and many details about the
design can be observed. Here also iterations may be performed to
optimize the design towards the user’s preferences.
In the fourth step, it is possible to order an electrical kit including the
components used for the design as well as the printed circuit board.
The four steps span from knowing the initial requirements of the
design up to receiving a box with the best suited hardware in the
mail.
38
April 2008
How does Webench compare to other simulation tools?
Webench in its marked-off system does not allow as much circuit
design flexibility as an independent local spice simulator does. However, the pre-determined feature set makes simulation setup possible
in a very short amount of time with a very high success rate. Users
do not need to be simulation experts to use electrical simulation
effectively to get the results they are looking for. Another benefit of a
bounded tool such as Webench is that it is a well controlled environment. It is constantly checked for errors. Improvements to the models
and simulation environment are made whenever required. This clearly is a big advantage to stand-alone behavioral models and simulators which might after release be used in a not anticipated way causing erroneous results. In such situations simulation will cause more
harm than good for an engineer trying to quickly design a power supply.
LED Webench
Over the years power management Webench has constantly been
improved and expanded. One of the largest recent expansions was
the addition of LED Webench®. Driving LEDs requires a constant
current. For low power LEDs sometimes a simple current source with
an LM317 in a fixed current configuration will do the trick. When multiple high power LEDs are to be driven, building a constant current
source for them becomes somewhat more difficult. Switching regulators become the preferred choice due to the much higher efficiency.
When multiple high Power LEDs are used in a system, there are
many different possibilities to put them all in series or all in parallel or
to go for a combination of both and put some in series and build a
few parallel LED chains. Each one of the different possibilities
requires an optimized power supply for the specific circumstance.
The powerful Webench® environment is a very good tool to tackle
such a task.
www.bodospower.com
D E S I G N & S I M U L AT I O N
Step by step to a high power LED driver design
After accessing LED Webench, the first step is to select the LEDs
which are supposed to be used in the system. There are 284 different LED types from seven different manufacturers selectable at this
point. If the preferred LED is not included in Webench today, a custom LED can be entered into the system by the user. After the LED
selection, the input voltage range to the system as well as the
amount of LEDs in series and / or in parallel are entered. Figure 1
shows a screenshot of the first selection stage.
The average inductor current does of course equal the average current through the LED block in such a step down design. This specific
simulation result shows how long it takes for the LED current to come
up after Vin is applied to the circuit and after the inductor current is
flowing. The time delay between the inductor current and the LED
current coming up is the time it takes for the output capacitor to
charge up.
Figure 3. Electrical simulation result during system startup
In the control panel on the left side of the simulation result window
individual voltages and currents of the circuit can be enabled and disabled.
Figure 1. Initial selection window of LED Webench
The next step is to select a power management solution from the list
of suggested solutions. Webench will highlight one solution as the
one it thinks to be suited the best. For the design in figure 1, the
LM3404 constant current buck regulator from the Power Wise family
was chosen. Once a solution is selected, a customized circuit is
being designed. For this actual design, a tradeoff between solution
size and efficiency as well as allowable ripple current through the
LEDs can be adjusted.
Figure 2 shows the circuit schematic which is the basis for the electrical simulation of the LED driver circuit. Each individual component
can be modified by clicking on it and changing its value or replacing it
with an entirely different device. On the right side, the output block
with the LED strings can be seen.
The last step of our LED driver design is to order the hardware and
build the actual circuit for final evaluation. A kit with the printed circuit
board, the LEDs as well as the power management IC with all the
external components can be ordered right out of Webench.
Also design documentation such as an assembly document, and a
design document can be downloaded. For users of the Altium
Designer environment, system schematic, board layout files and gerber files are available for users to download. They can then be easily
integrated into larger design projects.
Conclusion
The strength of Webench as an easy to use design tool is extended
to the world of driving LEDs. Especially for engineers who are not
dealing with power management on a daily basis, it is a valuable
resource in getting this necessary power management design completed in a timely manner.
Webench can be accessed and used free of charge when clicking on
the Webench link from National Semiconductor´s webpage.
http://webench.national.com/appinfo/webench/scripts/my_webench.cgi
www.national.com
Figure 2. Circuit schematic with LM3404 as constant current source
Figure 3 shows the simulation result of a startup simulation. The blue
channel is the input voltage of the supply rising monotonically up to
23V. The green channel is the inductor current and the red channel is
the actual LED current. Notice that each waveform has its individual
scale next to the graph.
www.bodospower.com
April 2008
39
D E S I G N & S I M U L AT I O N
From Idea to Design
in Less than 30 Minutes
Selection of the right MOSFETs can be a challenge
The design of power management systems for computing products has always been
a challenge for designers. With the increasing demand for efficient PCs,
servers and notebooks, power management takes more and more a place in the
center of the design process.
By Aranzazu Diaz-Valdivieso and Dr. Gerald Deboy, Infineon Technologies AG
and Dr. Uwe Knorr, Transim Technology Corporation
There are various decisions to be made from
the selection of appropriate ICs and control
strategies to the selection of discrete components and switches.
Especially the selection of the right MOSFETs can be a challenge. Multiple design
requirements have significant impact on the
final solution. Besides obvious factors such
as target application, cost and efficiency,
electrical parameters such as switching frequency, input and output voltage or output
current play important roles.
Traditionally semiconductor manufacturers
address this problem providing a wealth of
information in form of data sheets and application notes. They rely on the experience of
the potential customers to extract the necessary design rules and to make appropriate
decisions. The customer may need the support from the manufacturer's application
engineering team in product selection,
design analysis and final design-in. This
process can easily consume several weeks
limiting the speed at which a customer can
implement a design.
40
April 2008
Never stop thinking
This was the initial problem that was recently
attacked at Infineon Technologies AG. With a new
approach the design of
DC/DC power supplies
has been taken a step further. Following Infineon's
"Never stop thinking"
approach, the application
engineering team of the
computing power group
wanted to provide a solution that shortens the time
a potential customer
needs to select the right
products for a particular
computing application.
The starting point for the project was an
internal tool that Infineon engineers had
developed to quickly answer the many customer requirements regarding FET selection,
efficiency and the various trade-off that have
to be done in order to achieve an optimal
design. Being an Excel based application it
was not easy to distribute
and maintain over a large
and geographically distributed designer community.
It soon became clear that
the only way to address a
wide range of potential
users worldwide in an efficient manner was through
a web based solution.
This solution came with
Transim Technology Corporation - a Portland, Oregon based company that
is specialized in the delivery of web based design,
marketing and application engineering systems. As the leader in this field Transim was
the right partner to implement the new Infineon selection and design tool. Transim's
patented WebSIM® technology allows, on
top of that, an instant design verification
using remote simulation techniques. simT is
the recently released result of the collaborative effort between Infineon and Transim and
can be accessed through
www.infineon.com/simT
Target: Synchronous Buck Converter
The fact that most of today's computing
power supply designs are based on synchronous buck converter topologies provided the
idea for an entry point into that design system. As a first step the user selects the target application (motherboard, server, notebook, etc.) and defines the most common
design requirements (input and output voltage, output ripple, etc.).
Based on these requirements the software
offers the user a matching driver ICs and in
www.bodospower.com
D E S I G N & S I M U L AT I O N
a future version a matching controller IC.
Unlike traditional parametric search engines
simT provides the user with a complete solution rather than guiding the search to the
MOSFET only. The user has also the opportunity to further refine the search criteria by
selecting the desired packaging and number
of MOSFETs per phase. Furthermore the
tool allows the optimization with either focusing on efficiency or price.
Armed with all the design requirements
entered by the user the tool now searches
through the entire portfolio of low voltage
Infineon MOSFETs and proposes the 4 top
low side and high side pairs including estimated efficiency and pricing information.
From the list of potential design candidates
the user can generate a complete synchronous buck converter reference design for the
given design requirements.
A Custom Reference Design on the Push
of a Button
Using Transim's web schematic technology
the tool generates a complete design within
the web browser of the user. All passive
components are automatically assigned the
calculated values for the specific design
requirements. The user can still modify any
value by clicking on a component. Once the
all components are defined the built in simulation capability allows a quick and immediate design verification. The tool offers small
signal AC, transient load step, steady state
and detailed switching analysis. While the
first three simulations primarily help judge
the overall system performance the dynamic
switching simulation allows a detailed analysis of switching waveforms. By adjusting values of parasitic inductances the actual board
layout can be taken into account.
Another result of the design is a complete
loss overview. The tool automatically creates
a printable page with a break down of
switching and conduction losses, overall system efficiency and other helpful information.
An estimated efficiency plot is available as
well.
Based on the calculated passive component
values and the Infineon products selected for
the design the software also generates a bill
of materials. This typically serves as an initial design spec which in
consequent steps is being
refined.
Datasheet for all operating conditions
A limitation of traditional
datasheets either in printed or PDF form is that
they are typically generated for nominal conditions.
However in real designs
electronic components
rarely operate in their
nominal operating ranges.
In order to judge the component performance for
example at a certain temperature other than specified in the data
sheet a user traditionally contacted Infineon's technical support which in turn ran
simulations in order to produce the according component characteristics.
With the MOSFET analysis tool the user now
can quickly generate those custom characteristics online. According to the desired
characteristic a number of parameters can
be entered. The user defines which parameter to sweep and which to keep constant.
Using Infineon's accurate SPICE models the
MOSFET analysis tool generates a custom
characteristic predicting the behavior of the
part under the specific operating conditions.
Designs to-go
Even though Internet access becomes more
and more readily available, there are a number of occasions where the online design
tools cannot be accessed. Infineon's design
environment offers a solution for this as well.
The user must just download Infineon's simulation
tool called mySimT, based
on Transim´s webSimTM
Connect!. The software
contains two simulation
engines - an accurate and
fast converging SPICE
engine suited for detailed
transistor level analysis
and an extremely fast
piecewise linear solver
specifically developed to
support switching topologies. The software is
based on simplis Tech-
www.bodospower.com
nologies SIMetrix/SIMPLIS software
(www.simplistechnologies.com).
Once the software is downloaded and
installed (the download size is only approx.
15MByte) the user can start downloading
any schematic that is currently displayed on
the Web browser. If the user changed values
that were calculated during the reference
design generation process the downloaded
schematic reflects those changes. The
offline version of the design now allows the
user to change the topology of the system (a
typical use would be the addition of another
filer), modify any parameters and run
advanced analyses such as Monte Carlo or
Worst Case.
Fast and efficient - comprehensive
design support within minutes
With the introduction of simT Infineon takes
design support for their customer a step further. In an ever accelerating business world
fast, accurate and timely access to information is crucial for the success of a design.
simT is Infineon's answer to the challenges
of today's ever changing design landscape.
Web based design support will play a significant role in Infineon's future design support
offerings. Providing more than an online
library with data sheets and application
notes Infineon's online design center supports a sophisticated decision making
process, provides deep insight into the
expected performance of a solution and
helps users to verify a solution instantaneously.
www.infineon.com/simT
www.transim.com
www.simplistechnologies.com
April 2008
41
TEST & MEASUREMENT
Unique Tactile Pressure Indicating Sensor
Film Helps Capacitor Manufacturer Hold
Tighter Product Tolerances
Many of SB Electronics’ radial lead products are designed to take up the minimum
amount of space on printed circuit boards. This is often done by flattening the round
capacitor’s profile by pressing them between aluminum plates.
By Arlene Gleicher, Sensor Products Inc. and David Bryan, SB Electronics
As an innovator of film capacitor technology,
SB Electronics designs and manufactures
products that are on the cutting edge of
today’s demanding electronics applications.
To maintain continuous improvement of its
manufacturing processes, David Bryan,
Manufacturing Engineering Manager for SB
Electronics, recently specified Pressurex, a
tactile surface pressure indicating sensor film
from Sensor Products Inc. Many of SB Electronics’ radial lead products are designed to
take up the minimum amount of space on
printed circuit boards. This is often done by
flattening the round capacitor’s profile by
pressing them between aluminum plates. A
higher than expected scrap rate led the quality department to contact engineering to troubleshoot and improve the process. Engineering, in turn, contacted Sensor Products
Inc.
We ordered Pressurex, a thin sensor film
that instantly captures and permanently
records pressure distribution and magnitude
between contacting or mating surfaces. The
film measures pressure from 2 – 43,000 PSI
(0.14 – 3,000 kg/cm2). For his test, Bryan
specified “Super Low,” which measures
pressure from 70 – 350 PSI (5 – 25kg/cm2).
We inserted a sheet of Pressurex on top of
the capacitors and between the press plates
during a product run.
After the pressing operation, when we examined Pressurex, the film had changed different intensities of color, with the color change
directly proportional to the actual pressure
applied. SB Electronics was able to determine the precise pressure magnitude by
comparing the color intensity to a color correlation chart (conceptually similar to interpreting Litmus paper). We could visually
inspect Pressurex and prove the press
plates weren’t flat and were causing uneven
pressure distribution.
Figure 2: Before Pressing
Figure 4: Pressurex film revealed the
uneven distribution of pressure across the
press plates. (Image by Topaq Analysis System.)
Figure 1: SB Electronics’ capacitors after
being pressed
After histograms indicated that some of the
tighter tolerance parts (±1% capacitance)
were going out of spec during our pressing
operation, and making some initial dimensional measurements using conventional
measuring equipment (calipers and micrometers), SB Electronics wanted a better way
to determine exactly what was happening
with the surface pressure during this
process
42
April 2008
Figure 3: After Pressing
Stimulated by this discovery, we wanted to
statistically analyze the surface pressure further. We asked Sensor Products to use their
Topaq Image Analysis System, which consists of a Windows-based software and
scanner, specifically calibrated to read and
further interpret the film. Interpreted images
are accompanied by a wealth of graphical
and statistical data that are extremely valuable for contact pressure tests. With Topaq,
small and problematic areas can be carefully
scrutinized, as well as the entire interfacial
surface.
www.bodospower.com
TEST & MEASUREMENT
We continued to use standard tools such as micrometers and
calipers, but are asking that Pressurex be included as an on-going
ISO quality control protocol. In the past, we had used the film to
evaluate bolted flange designs for custom fittings in vacuum systems.
Pressurex allows for rapid and easy determination of compression
magnitude and distribution. The film has many uses in multi-layer
printed circuit board assembly, including analyzing contact uniformity in the design and production of printed circuit boards (PCB)
assemblies. In wafer fabrication, Pressurex is often used to verify
flatness, revealing lamination press problems caused by inconsistent bonding pressures. It can successfully predict and evaluate
load distribution, revealing problems such as the overloading of
connector contacts, standoffs, and component solder joints.
The sensor film is used in many electronic and industrial applications, such as assessing contact inconsistencies in heat sinks,
gaskets, clamps, bolted joints, heat sealing elements, nip rolls and
welding heads. New uses for Pressurex are discovered daily.
The use of Pressurex can significantly improve quality and reliability levels during prototyping, development and production processes, while, at the same time, helping to reduce production costs and
budget over-runs. This will contribute to leaner, simpler, and more
accurate manufacturing and testing methods.
Headquartered in New Jersey and established in 1990, Sensor
Products Inc. is a world leader in the manufacture and distribution
of tactile pressure sensing solutions. Their customized and off-theshelf products are installed within all of the Fortune 500 industrial
companies as well as thousands of smaller manufacturing firms.
Their sensors are used in applications as diverse as tire testing to
semiconductor manufacturing and from R&D labs to space missions. Additionally, Sensor Products provides in-house and on-site
stress and pressure mapping analysis, as well as a variety of technical seminars.
For a free sample of Pressurex, contact Sensor Products Inc. at
1.973.884.1755 (USA) or visit their website.
www.sensorprod.com/sample
SBE Inc., dba SB Electronics, designs and manufactures Film
Capacitor Products for today’s demanding applications. They have
developed unique technology (patent pending) in pulse power
design and continue to introduce new technologies to support the
Homeland Security, Electric Utility, Energy Efficient Lighting, Medical and Automotive/e-drive markets.
www.sbelectronics.com
www.bodospower.com
TYPE
IXKR 47N60C5
FMD 15-06KC5
FMD 47-06KC5
FDM 15-06KC5
FDM 47-06KC5
LKK 47-06C5
IXKT 70N60C5
V DS
ID25
R DS(ON)typ Q G(ON)
Max T c=25°C Tc=25°C
typ
V
A
½
nC
600
47
0,045
150
600
15
0,165
40
600
47
0,045
150
600
15
0,165
40
600
47
0,045
150
600
2 x 47
0,045
2 x 150
600
66
0,045
150
Package
Circuit
ISOPLUS 247
ISOPLUS i4
ISOPLUS i4
ISOPLUS i4
ISOPLUS i4
ISOPLUS 264
TO-268AA
Single
Boost
Boost
Buck
Buck
Dual
Single
April 2008
43
THERMAL MANAGEMENT
Passive Heatsinks Designed to
Out- Perform Active Solutions
The solution is robust and maintenance free
Recent developments in downsizing of equipment enclosures have guided to new challenges for designers of thermal solutions and in particular natural convection heatsinks
By Andreas Engelhardt, Research Engineer, Thermacore Europe Ltd., Ashington, UK
Natural Convection heat sinks are still the
preferred solution in many applications
where extra cooling is required without having to go towards an active solution. The
main advantages are that the solution is
robust, maintenance free as well as can be
mass produced in a cost effective manner.
But there are cases, where the normal extrusions do not deliver the required performance and further enhancements have to be
done to heatsinks in order to meet more
demanding customers’ needs.
This article/ case study deals with a theoretical as well as experimental investigation of a
problem where further enhancements were
thermally required and the footprint to height
ratio did not allow the installation of a sufficient surfaced conventional heatsink. Apart
from obvious measures like increasing the
radiation coefficient through colouring the
surface black more advanced approaches
needed to be taken.
Basic Heatsink Considerations:
From a theoretical point of view, there are
two main laws of physics involved in successful heat sink design. First it is Newton’s
law of Cooling and secondly it is Fourier’s
law. Newton’s law of cooling deals with the
required surface area for a certain temperature loss from the heated surface towards
the ambient air over a period of time.
ΔQ
= h * A * ΔT
Δt
Deriving Newton’s law of cooling towards the
ΔT guides to the following equation:
ΔT =
ΔQ
1
*
h * A Δt
In the equation above as well as in Fourier’s
law mentioned below ΔQ is always the heat
input into the system over a certain period of
time.
Fourier’s law deals with conduction looses in
media the heat has to travel through prior to
being dissipated.
ΔT
ΔQ
= −k * A *
Δx
Δt
Deriving this to ΔT gives the following equation, which can be used to determine the
losses within the cooling fins is the heat sink.
ΔT = −
ΔQ Δx
*
Δt k * A
The term ΔQ over Δt remains the same as in
previous occasion whilst Δx is the distance
the heat has to travel through before being
dissipated and A is the cross sectional area
to do so. k is the thermal conductivity of the
heat sink material. As a rule of thumb
180W/mK for Aluminium and 386W/mK for
Copper have proven realistic even though
some materials suppliers claim to achieve
higher values. The higher values do not tend
to be reproducible with serious measurement methods.
Material Selection
The material selection for the heatsink material is very often guided by practical choices
like cost and weight which does not always
make Copper the preferred choice.
Heat Sink Enhancement
One way of enhancing the performance of
the heat sink is either adding a highly conductive coating onto the fins or by embedding higher conductive materials or devices
into the heat sink.
Apart from adding Copper slugs into the
heat sink, two phase devices are a good
way of improving the heat sink performance
further through better utilisation of the available surface area without increasing the
weight significantly.
Depending on the heat sink design these
devices can either be embedded into the
base of the conventional heatsink or can be
introduced into the middle of the heatsink
web if necessary.
Design Considerations
For embedding the heat pipes into the base
of a heat sink there are two different groups
of designs available, a flat plate heat pipe
which covers the entire base of the heat sink
or normal heat pipes.
Normal heat pipes can come in either round
or bend shapes which then might be flattened in certain sections where required in
order to minimize the resistance of the heat
entrance into the device.
In this equation h is the heat transfer coefficient. As a rule of thumb anything higher
than 6-8 W/(m2K) seems hard to be achievable for natural correction.
ΔT is the temperature difference between
the heated surface and the surrounding cooling medium, in this case the ambient air.
ΔT = TO − Ta
44
April 2008
Figure 1: Gun-drilled Heat Sink
www.bodospower.com
THERMAL MANAGEMENT
For embedding the heatpipes three main methods are available,
embedding via thermally conductive adhesive, gun-drilling and soldering.
Whilst soldering heatpipes into the heat sink base requires the greatest amount of preparation like plating of the heat sink it also has the
lowest resistance and highest improvements to the performance of
the heat sink.
Practical Investigation
During the following sections an in depth overview of heat sink
enhancements for an application where the footprint to height ratio is
close to 1 from theoretical simulation approach towards prototype
testing will be shown.
First a standard type heat sink was tested and has shown not be sufficient in terms of performance. In Figure 1 it was shown that even
with gun drilled heat pipes embedded in the base which has a similar
effect as adding a vapour chamber underneath the heat sink but at a
slightly lower cost. The major problem was that the heat was not
spread efficiently into the fins and therefore did not utilise the entire
fin area available efficiently.
The second approach undertaken was to investigate the ThermaTower™/ heat column idea (Figure 2) which was intended to maximize
the fin area available whilst picking up the heat directly form the chip
underneath the heat sink and spread it into the fin. This concept has
work very well and gave the advantage of a heatsink which is less
susceptive to orientation changes. The only reason why this did not
become the most preferable solution was that the power needs to
reach a certain threshold before the heat column produces the lowest
overall ΔT.
The approach which has given the best overall performance in the
given tasks was a combined one.
It can be seen in Figure 3 and consisted of a single heat pipe soldered into the base of the heat sink and a tree design picking up
from the top of the heat pipe. This design combines a good spreading through the base of the heat sink with the advantage of low ΔT
losses through the heat sink material prior to be dissipated into the
ambient air. The tree shape has a distinctive advantage over conventional base/ fin type heat sink in this case due to much better utilisation of the available heatsink length as well as the fin area. Further
weight reduction improvements can be made by stepping the tree/ rib
Figure 2: ThermaTower™ Heat Sink
thickness with a bigger thickness at the base of the heat sink becoming thinner to the top of the tree. This helps not only reducing the
weight but also improves the overall utilisation of material available
which is one of the most crucial design parameters for optimized
heat sinks, that the available surface area is used to dissipate heat
rather than just add weight to the solution without performance
improvements, no matter whether it is natural or forced convection.
Conclusions
Optimally designed natural convection heat
sinks are still a very attractive maintenance
free solution for cooling electronic components even in enclosures of reduced size.
The smaller the housing gets and the more
challenging the orientations and ambient
conditions are, the more it is important to
choose the most appropriate heat sink design
for the task which might not always be a
simple extrusion profile.
www.thermacore-europe.com
Figure 3: Tree Design Heat Sink
www.bodospower.com
April 2008
45
NEW PRODUCTS@APEC
Step-Down Switching Regulator
ROHM Electronics announces the BD9870, a single-channel stepdown switching regulator that offers high efficiency, exceptional
space savings, design simplicity and high reliability for a variety of
applications, including TVs, DVD players, gaming consoles, PCs, car
audio and navigation systems, industrial and office equipment, and
entertainment systems.
The BD9870 integrates a switching voltage regulator, 1.5 A-rated pchannel power MOSFET and compensation circuitry into a compact
TO-252S-5 package. Eliminating external feedback compensation
components makes complete design possible using only an external
coil, diode and output capacitor. In addition, the device's industryleading 900 kHz operation permits use of a smaller coil and ceramic
output capacitor, which, when combined with the regulator's internal
features, results in a 60% board-space savings compared with current solutions on the market.
Compared with competitive, compensation-integrated switchers, the
BD9870 IC offers the industry's highest efficiency (88%) and output
accuracy (±1.0%), the lowest bias current (3 mA) and zero standby
current. The input voltage can range from 8 V to 35 V, with output
voltage adjustable down to 1.0 V. A (5 ms, fixed) soft-start feature is
also included. Reliability is enhanced by internal protection circuits,
including thermal shutdown (TSD) and over-current protection (OCP).
The combined benefits of the BD9870's small package size, high
switching frequency, minimal external components and integrated
protection circuitry result in a compact, efficient and highly reliable
switching power supply that is as simple to design in and use as an
LDO.
www.rohm.com
Energy-Saving CoolMOS
First 900volt power MOSFET using charge compensation principle
for switched mode power supplies (SMPS ), industry and renewable
energy applications.
Infineon continues to deliver energy-saving CoolMOS power MOS
FETs with extremely low static and dynamic power losses. Based on
the device concept of charge compensation the on-resistance
(RDS(on)) can be drastically reduced by a factor of four or more per
package type, compared to other 900V conventional MOSFETs.
CoolMOS TMC3 900V also offers a very low figure-of-merit on-resistance times gate charge (RDS(on)*Qg) of 34ohm*nC, translating into
low conduction, driving
and switching losses. The energy stored in the output capacitance is
reduced by a factor of two compared to conventional 900V MOS FET
s, which reduces power losses during hard-switched turn-on. The
CoolMOS TMC3 900V is well suited for high efficiency switch mode
power supplies, industry and renewable energies applications.
Change of design criteria is possible as designers can allow a higher
DC-link or input voltage. High power applications which uses threephase PFC and PWM stages with DC-link voltages up to 750V will
benefit from CoolMOS TMC3 900V offering lowest on-resistance in
TO 247 package. The high blocking voltage in combination with low
conduction losses and switching losses also open up for new design
criteria in quasi-resonance flyback and single transistor forward
46
April 2008
topologies, used in LCD-TV and PC silverboxes for example.
Higher efficiency, reduced system costs, and high power density are
pointing the way towards future system development.
www.infineon.com/powermanagement
www.bodospower.com
NEW PRODUCTS@APEC
Secondary Side Rectification for SMPS Designs
Fairchild Semiconductor offers power supply designers a Power-SPM
module that increases efficiency in power supplies to meet stringent
ENERGY STAR requirements. The Power-SPM FPP06R001 is a
highly integrated synchronous rectifier module that increases power
efficiency, system ruggedness and space efficiency in power supplies
designs. Incorporating two PowerTrench® MOSFETs and a high current gate driver in a compact transfer-molded package, the PowerSPM simplifies board design, eliminates up to 10 discrete components and reduces board space by 20 percent. It provides 10 percent lower on-resistance and 16 percent lower stray inductance compared to discrete solutions, which results in lower thermal dissipation
and reduced voltage stress. Its high efficiency is instrumental in helping power supply designs meet next generation ENERGY STAR
requirements. These requirements specify that power supplies must
achieve 85 percent or greater efficiency at normal output load conditions.
Fairchild is at the forefront of solving energy-efficiency challenges.
The ENERGY STAR requirement for power supply units will soon
increase to 88 percent minimum efficiency at the medium output load
condition. This Power-SPM module will be instrumental in helping
power supplies meet this requirement, says Donghye Cho, Director
of Fairchild’s Power Supply System team.
www.fairchildsemi.com
ABB sensors: for a current from 5 A to 40 kA
or a voltage from 50 to 5000 V
You have a sensing need for global project!
We have multiple objectives to give you a support!
In our changing and complex world ABB is aware
of the need of perpetual improvement. That’s why
we set ourselves several objectives (compactness,
robustness, high quality): to help our customers
strengthen their position on the market, to bring added value to their management,
to anticipate their needs and provide the most advantageous technological solutions.
ABB develops technologies which are different from those already on the market to find
the best compromise between performances and cost for our customers. In order to bring
customized solutions, we closely connect our engineer’s know-how with our customer’s
research department skills. This approach has already allowed us to generate several
ABB France
Automation Products Division
Protection & Control Activity
Current & Voltage Sensors Department
innovations like current and voltage measurement with 100% electronic technology.
For further information please visit http://www.abb.com
Or email: [email protected]
10, rue Ampère ZI - B.P. 114
F-69685 Chassieu cedex / France
Fax: +33 (0) 4 7222 1984
e-mail: [email protected]
www.bodospower.com
April 2008
47
NEW PRODUCTS@APEC
Soft-Start High Side Power Switches
Micrel launched the MIC94064/5, a series of high-side load switches
that extend Micrel's industry-leading MIC9406x family of high-side
load switch products. The MIC9406x family now covers a wide range
of battery-powered consumer and industrial applications that require
a variety of turn-on characteristics, including portable computers, cell
phones, and personal media devices. The MIC94064/5 series is currently available in volume quantities.
The MIC94064/5 offer an output voltage turn-on time of 115μs, complementing the less than 1μ turn-on time for the MIC94060/1 and
800μs turn-on time for the MIC94062/3. The MIC9406x feature a
typical RDSON of 77mohm. The devices operate with inputs ranging
from 1.7V to 5.5V. Each solution can be driven by a low 1.5V logic
level, which is accomplished by incorporating a novel built-in level
shift circuitry that allows low voltage logic to control higher voltage
supplies. Battery time is greatly extended in portable applications
due to the low operating current of 2μA and a shutdown current of
less than 1μA. The MIC94064/5 have a slew rate controlled turn-on
time of 115μs (typical) that prevents in-rush current. In addition, the
MIC94065 provides an active load discharge circuit that insures
capacitive loads retain no charge when the main switch is in an OFF
state. The MIC94064/5 series are available housed in the thin 4-pin
1.2mm x 1.6mm MLF® and Teeny™ SC-70-6 packages.
www.micrel.com
PolyZen Polymer, Zener Diode Micro-Assemblies
Tyco Electronics announced the addition of two new devices to its
popular line of PolyZen™ polymer enhanced, precision Zener diode
micro-assemblies. The new devices feature a higher hold current
(2.3A) and are designed to help protect circuits in global positioning
systems (GPS), smart phones, game consoles, portable media players (PMPs) and other video-based peripherals that can be charged in
the car.
The PolyZen micro-assembly incorporates a stable Zener diode for
precise voltage clamping and a resistively non-linear, polymer positive temperature coefficient (PPTC) layer that responds to either
diode heating or overcurrent events by transitioning from a low to
high resistance state. The device helps provide coordinated protection with a component that protects like a Zener diode, but is capable
of withstanding very high power fault conditions without requiring any
special heat sinking structures beyond normal printed circuit board
traces.
By clamping and smoothing inductive voltage spikes, PolyZen
devices help shield downstream electronics from overvoltage and
reverse bias. Additionally, their high power absorption capability protects against faults that occur when using an incorrect or misconnected power supply.
Because PMPs offer larger display panels and video processing
capabilities, they require more power and draw higher current than
prior-generation portable devices. Multiple interfaces and charging
systems can also expose these devices to damage caused by misconnection of the 5V and 12V lines. The new PolyZen devices are
capable of withstanding the high inrush currents and faults associated with the new technology, and are available in a small form factor
that is suitable for PMPs.
www.circuitprotection.com
48
April 2008
www.bodospower.com
NEW PRODUCTS@APEC
Random-Phase and Zero-Cross Triac Driver Optocouplers
Everlight Electronics introduces a complete portfolio of 6-pin DIP random-phase and zero-cross triac driver optocouplers offering the
widest operating range (-55 to +100 degrees C) available today.
Encompassing 21 different devices with a choice of peak blocking
voltages from 250 V to 800 V, the EL30XX triac driver optocoupler
family provides added design flexibility and significant board-space
savings in designs interfacing between low-current DC control circuits
and AC power loads up to 380 V. These include industrial and consumer applications such as refrigerators, dishwashers, temperature
controls, air conditioners (HVAC), vending machines, lighting controls, AC-motor drives, solid-state relays and solenoid/valve controls.
Everlight's EL30XX triac driver optocouplers offer an inexpensive
alternative to using costly discrete driving circuitry requiring multiple
components that consume board space. The zero-cross versions of
the triac driver optocouplers provide added protection in the form of a
zero-crossing detection circuit connected to the gates of the individual Silicon-Controlled Rectifiers (SCR). This eliminates current
surges, reduces electromagnetic interference (EMI) and significantly
improves transient immunity (dv/dt). Additionally, the 800 V series of
zero-cross devices provides a better safety margin for control of offline voltages of 380 V.
www.everlight.com
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FERRAZ SHAWMUT SAS
1, rue Jean Novel
F-69626 Villeurbanne Cedex
France
Phone: + 33 (0)4 72 22 66 11
Fax: + 33 (0)4 72 22 67 13
www.ferrazshawmut.com
www.bodospower.com
April 2008
49
NEW PRODUCTS
Overcurrent Thermistors now Lead-Free
EPCOS now offers leaded overcurrent PTC
thermistors (B598*C0120A570) for powerline applications in lead-free versions. The
high-temperature solder in these innovative
and environmentally friendly protective components is entirely lead-free, and the concentration of lead bound in the ceramic does
not exceed 0.1 percent – features that distinguish these components from all comparable
standard products on the market.
With a resistance tolerance of only 20 percent and a narrow switching range, the electrical properties of these PTCs are also
superior to the standard range. Their maxi-
mum voltage is 265 V. These lead-free components are available in a resistance range
from 10 to 120 ?. Depending on the type,
the release current ranges from 75 to 330
mA.
These products are consequently suited as
over-current protection components on the
power side for all types of power supplies.
The whole series has UL certification and its
VDE approval will shortly be concluded.
www.epcos.com
Output Filters for Frequency Inverters
PREMO EMC sinus filters are specially
designed for installations with frequency
inverters which need completely sinusoidal
output signals and where pulse-width modulation (PWM) is not suitable.
FS Sinus series prepares output wave and
completely reduces dV/dT generated by
IGBTs at inverter’s output that may damage
motor wounding and shorten its useful life.
Besides, they allow using long cable lengths
between motor and inverter.
Utilization of this type of filters has following
advantages: Reduction of dV/dT and over
voltages that motor receives, wounding protection, it increases motor useful life, lower
inverter’s conducted disturbances, reduction
of Eddy currents that damages bearings and
reduction of motor audible noise.
Sinus filters are composed of two threephase series FS4 and FS6. FS4 series is
indicated for rated voltage up to 400 Vac and
FS6 series is indicated for rated voltage up
to 690 Vac. The range of current is from 2.5
up to 610 Amps.
Both families are designed for applications
with motor frequencies up to 50 Hz and carrier frequencies between 4 and 16 kHz.
There is also the possibility of custom made
design for higher motor frequencies.
The connection is done by safety terminal
blocks up to 150 Amps model and by copper
busbar for higher currents.
www.grupopremo.com
GaAs FET High-Power Amplifier for WiMAX
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation is introducing the new GaAs FET
amplifier MGFC47B3538B for the 3.6GHz range whose distortions
are reduced by 8dB compared to previous models, which equals a
cut-down of distortions by 83% to 1/6 of previously achieved values.
Simultaneously the power consumption decreased significantly to 1/3
in the 3.5 to 3.8GHz frequency range at an output power of 37dB.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation is able to achieve these brilliant data
by utilizing a newly-designed internally impedance-matched circuit
and a FET chip optimized for the 3.6GHz band operating with a quiescent drain current of just 1.5A at a gate series resistance of 5Ù.
With an error vector magnitude (EVM) of only 2% the new
MGFC47B3538B allows for a very high accuracy of the orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). While operating with a drain
to source voltage of 12V the new component provides an saturated
output power of 50W and a linear power gain of 10dB.
Due to its low power consumption the physical dimensions of WiMAX
base stations can be reduced as smaller power supplies and smaller
heat sinks can be used. This leads to lower installation and operating
costs of the WiMAX base stations by using the new MGFC47B3538B
from Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.
www.mitsubishichips.com
50
April 2008
www.bodospower.com
NEW PRODUCTS
Driver IC Consolidates Stepper and Brush-DC Motor
Toshiba Electronics Europe has announced a multi-motor driver IC
with valuable integrated features, allowing engineers to establish a
common hardware solution to driving multiple stepper motors or
brush DC motors.
The Toshiba Electronics TB62237BFG uses Toshiba’s high-voltage IC
technology to combine four H-bridge outputs with motor-control logic
for stepper and brush DC motors, as well as three DC-DC converters, a built-in timer and protection functions. This creates a highly
integrated solution for single-, dual- and quadruple-axis motor driving
duties. The DMOS motor-driver outputs achieve low on-resistance of
0.6Ù for low-loss operation, leading to high efficiency. A further benefit is low heat dissipation, which enhances reliability and reduces cost
by easing thermal management.
With two 16-bit shift registers, each equipped with a latch, the IC is
capable of driving any combination of stepper and brushed DC
motors up to a maximum of four axes. Each of the four H-Bridges
can be programmed to accommodate either a stepper configuration
with 4-bit micro stepping or a DC brushed one. Since parallel operation of each two H-Bridges is also supported the designer has the
choice to drive fewer motor axes but with higher current. High-speed
chopping at up to 150kHz is possible, controlled by an external oscillator. Motors operating at an input voltage up to 40V can be driven,
and the maximum standard motor-driving current is 6.4A per bridge.
This can be increased to 8.0A for single- or dual-axis operation by
connecting the device’s H-bridge pairs using external jumpers.
www.toshiba-components.com
Updated Harmonic/Flicker Measurement
A new version of the harmonic/flicker measurement software for the
Yokogawa WT3000 precision power analyser has been released to
comply with new international power-quality standards.
The new 761922 harmonic/flicker measurement software has been
developed in response to new regulations for harmonic current over
16 A, which will be enforced as a low frequency EMC test from February 2008. The relevant new standards, which include precise definitions of measurement procedures and settings, are EN61000-311/IEC61000-3-11: Limitations of voltage fluctuations and flicker equipment rated current >16 A per phase; and EN61000-312/IEC61000-3-12: Limits for harmonic current emissions - equipment rated current >16 A per phase.
The upgraded harmonic/flicker measurement software allows engineers without specialised knowledge to perform a range of operations using the WT3000 precision power analyser, including value
limit judging functions for standards compliance and the production of
test reports.
The software requires the WT3000 precision power analyser to be fitted with the 30 A input option as well as the advanced computation
and flicker measurement functions.
www.yokogawa.com
XFLUX Cores for Low and Medium Frequency Chokes
Magnetics is pleased to
announce the addition of
XFLUXTM, a distributed air
gap 6.5% SiFe material, to
our existing powder core
line. A true high temperature material, with
no thermal aging, XFLUX offers lower losses
than powder iron cores and superior DC
Bias performance.
52
April 2008
XFLUX cores are ideal for low and medium
frequency chokes where inductance at peak
is critical. One of the many challenges facing designers of high power circuits is maintaining inductance in the power choke at
maximum load. XFLUX is the cost-effective
solution to getting enough inductance in a
reasonable size package.
Seven toroid sizes (60 permeability) are currently available. Outside diameters range in
size from 21 mm to 47 mm. New sizes and
permeabilities will be added in the future.
www.magnetics.com
www.bodospower.com
NEW PRODUCTS
Touch Sense Demonstration Board
Microchip announces the PICDEM™ Touch Sense 1 Demo Board
(Part number DM164125) for capacitive touch-sensing applications.
The easy-to-use board comes with a PICkit™ Serial Analyzer and the
royalty-free mTouch™ Sensing Solution Software Development Kit
(SDK). Together, the board and supporting materials provide a complete platform for implementing capacitive touch-sensing interfaces
using the highly integrated, cost-effective 8-bit Flash PIC® microcontrollers.
Many applications in the consumer, appliance and medical markets
now employ capacitive touch-sensing technology for reasons such as
aesthetics, maintenance, cost and cleanliness. The PICDEM Touch
Sense 1 Demo Board is equipped with capacitive touch-sensing keys
and sliders to enable designers to evaluate the technology in their
applications using the PICkit Serial Analyzer and Windows-based
mTouch Diagnostic Tool, an easy-to-use Graphical User Interface
(GUI) that is included in the mTouch Sensing Solution SDK. Libraries,
source code and other support materials that come with the board
further shorten development time and reduce design costs.
The PICDEM Touch Sense 1 demo board (Part number DM164125)
can be purchased at:
www.microchipdirect.com
Real-time Power Monitoring IC
International Rectifier has introduced the versatile IR3721 output
power monitor IC for low-voltage DC-DC converters used in notebook, desktop computers, and energy-efficient server applications.
The IR3721 utilizes IR’s patent-pending TruePowerTM technology to
accurately capture highly dynamic power information with 2.5 percent
accuracy at 65°C.
The IR3721 measures dynamic power at the output/load side of voltage regulators to deliver a significant improvement in dynamic power
measurement accuracy compared to competing power monitor ICs.
TruePowerTM technology addresses dynamic errors which can
account for more than a 30 percent error in competing solutions
which monitor voltage and current separately in dynamic conditions
with independent A/D conversion.
“By monitoring instantaneous power, the power system can accurately predict thermals in the system at any given point in time, said
Jeff Sherman, IR’s senior product marketing manager for Enterprise
Power Products. “With this intelligence, the power system can manage the load’s electrical characteristics to limit its power and establish
the correct cooling conditions in advance so that the load does not
leave its required thermal envelope, optimizing its throughput, and
hence its performance,” added Sherman.
www.irf.com
Marine Power Application
With power sources that can range anywhere from good to poor, shipboard environments can be challenging. The EPC application required a PSU that would tolerate a
wide input range of varied quality for use in
countries around the world. Excelsys
offered a supply with a universal input of 85265V that filled the bill. EPC’s immediate
application was submarine based. Overall
54
April 2008
size and reliability were of critical concern,
as was the quality of the DC outputs when
under load. The EPC product required four
different outputs to drive the various systems
of the recorder. The superior performance
and flat characteristics of the Excelsys modules enabled a reduction of the external
surge capacitors from 11000uF to 1000uF
with consequent space and cost savings.
EPC also manufactures a line of smaller
plotters with single-array printheads. Configuring the Excelsys supply for use in these
systems was as simple as just removing a
module from the chassis.
www.excelsys.com
www.bodospower.com
Schedule now!
Nürnberg, Germany
6. – 8.5.2008
www.sensor-test.com
15th International Trade Fair for Sensorics, Measuring and
Testing Technologies with concurrent Conferences:
- OPTO 2008 – 8th International conference on Optical
Technologies for Sensing and Measurement
- IRS2 2008 – 10th International Conference on Infrared
Sensors and Systems
Organiser:
AMA Service GmbH · Tel. +49(0)5033 96390 · [email protected]
www.sensor-test.com
NEW PRODUCTS
High-Voltage Fuse Links According to IEC 60282-1
Ferraz Shawmut launches a brand-new line of High-Voltage Fuse
Links according to the International Standard IEC 60282-1. These
fuse links are intended to protect high-voltage distribution networks
and transformers. They are current-limiting type and for indoor as
well as outdoor use.
The line is made by: Back-up fuse links with or without CPD (Controlled Power Dissipation),
General Purpose type fuse links. The line lies between 3/7.2 kV and
20/36 kV of rated voltage.
Two ranges exist in this line: International range complying with IEC
60282-1, German range complying with IEC 60282-1 (VDE 0670 T4)
as well as VDE 0670 T402.
The Controlled Power Dissipation (CPD) from Ferraz Shawmut is
driven par power dissipation and not only by temperature. While
operating faster, it avoids high temperatures especially in SF6
switchgear. The mechanism of the CPD actuates the ‘medium’ type
striker of the fuse link. In that case a combination with a switch is
required.
Ferraz Shawmut is a global partner for industry offering innovative
solutions to improve the power quality and the safety of their customers’ equipment. Ferraz Shawmut serves five markets: power quality, power conversion, industrial controls, power production and distribution, transportation. The product offering encompasses: a ‘full basket’ for low and medium voltage industrial fuse and fusegear, solutions of thermal management for power electronics and power interconnection solutions.
As the Carbone Lorraine’s Electrical Protection Division Ferraz
Shamwut had 230 euros million in consolidated sales in 2007. The
company manufactures at ten dedicated facilities on every continent
to meet the needs of each area. A global logistics has been set up to
serve the global market with the expected customer service level.
Ferraz Shawmut products are sold all over the world at 4500 points
of sale through professional distributors of electrical equipment.
www.ferrazshawmut.com
4A Synchronous Buck Regulator
Micrel introduced a new member to its high power density family of
products, a fully-integrated 4A synchronous buck regulator, the
MIC22400 for powering systems from 3.3V and 5V supply rails. With
operating frequency programmable from 800KHz to 4 MHz, the IC
features built-in sequencing, tracking and ramp control ? enabling all
power-up sequencing and tracking protocols. Targeted at the communications, computing peripherals, and high-end consumer markets, the solution is ideal for servers/routers, HD DVD recorders,
wireless base stations, FPGAs, DSPs, and low voltage ASICs, as
well as other high power density applications. The MIC22400 is currently available in volume quantities with pricing starting at $2.54 for
1K quantities.
The MIC22400 features fully integrated 60mOhm P-FET and
35mOhm N-FET switches that deliver a 4A output current with an
input voltage range of 2.6-5.5V. The device has an adjustable output
voltage down to 0.7V and provides efficiencies of up to 95 percent. A
proprietary, patent–pending internal compensation scheme makes
the devices extremely easy to use. The MIC22400 requires very few
external components and operates at a high fixed switching frequency, which in turn, reduces the size of passive components.
www.micrel.com
ABB semiconductor
ABB France
Aeps
Bicron Electronis
Bodo´s Power
CPS
CT Concept Technologie
Danfoss Silicon Power
Darnell
Epcos
EPE-PEMC
56
April 2008
C3
47
45
9
14
11
17
1
17
33
51
ADVERTISING INDEX
Fairchild
Ferraz
Fuji Electric
ICW
In Power
International Rectifier
Intersil
IXYS
National semiconductor
LEM
Microsemi
C2
49
21
23
11
C4
19
43
7
5
23
Mitsubishi
PCIM Europe
Plexim
Sensor + Test
SMT
SPI
Texas Instruments
Vincotech
VMI
Würth Elektronik
25
29
15
55
53
39
13
3
37
31
www.bodospower.com
Efficiency ...
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Presenting the world’s lowest - loss 6.5 kV switches:
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(4 V @ 750 A)
Visit us at PCIM 2008, Hall 12, Stand 408
ABB Switzerland Ltd
Semiconductors
Tel: + 41 58 586 1419
www.abb.com/semiconductors
Power and productivity
for a better world ™
6mm
5mm
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SupIRBuck Integrated Regulators:
Simply Smaller, Cooler
Save Energy, Accelerate POL Design, Shrink Footprint 70%
Hall 12, Stand 202
IR38XX EFFICIENCY
100
The SupIRBuck™ family of versatile
ersatile
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point
point-ofi of
load (POL) voltage regulators shrink silicon
footprint 70% compared to discrete solutions
and offer up to 10% higher full-load efficiency
than monolithic power ICs.
%
90
80
70
60
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
A
Part Number
VIN
Max/Min
VOUT
Max/Min
Max
Current
FSW
Package
Features
IR3812MPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
4A
600KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; Tracking
IR3822MPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
4A
600KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; PGood
IR3822AMPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
6A
300KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; PGood
IR3811MPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
7A
600KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; Tracking
IR3821MPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
7A
600KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; PGood
IR3821AMPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
9A
300KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; PGood
IR3810MPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
12A
600KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; Tracking
IR3820MPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
12A
600KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; PGood
IR3820AMPBF
21 / 2.5
12 / 0.6
14A
300KHz
5mm x 6mm QFN
OCP; OTP; PGood
For more information call +33 (0) 1 64 86 49 53 or +49 (0) 6102 884 311
or visit us at www.irf.com/dcdc
SupIRBuck is a trademark of International Rectifier Corp.
Features
• 600kHz switching frequency
• 4A/7A/12A output options
• Programmable soft start with enable
• Programmable over-current protection
• 0.6V reference voltage with 1.5% accuracy
• 2.5V to 21V conversion Input
• Pre-Bias protection
• Integrates rugged control and
sync FETs with control IC in one simple
5mm x 6mm power QFN package
• Optional 300kHz, DDR memory tracking,
programmable PGOOD
Benefits
• Ease of implementation
• Enables single input voltage rail
• Wide input voltage range
• Common footprint for 4A,
7A and 12A power regulators
• Fewer discrete components
THE POWER MANAGEMENT LEADER