Renesas Electronics announces low-loss SiC power device series

TOKYO, JAPAN: Renesas Electronics Corp. announced the availability of three silicon carbide (SiC) compound power devices, the RJQ6020DPM, the RJQ6021DPM and the RJQ6022DPM, that incorporate multiple SiC diodes and multiple power transistors in a single package to compose a power converter circuit or switching circuit.

These are the second series of power semiconductor products from Renesas to employ SiC, a new material effective in reducing loss, and they are intended for use in home appliances such as air conditioners, PC servers, and power electronics products such as solar power generation systems.

Recently, efforts to reduce the power consumption of electric devices have progressed to address considerations such as environmental protection, and demand has increased for higher efficiency in a variety of electrical products.

In particular, a strong trend can be seen toward boosting power conversion efficiency and operating efficiency to reduce power consumption in power switching circuits for products such as air conditioners, communication base stations, PC servers, and solar power generation systems, and in inverter circuits for applications such as motors and industrial equipment. This has spurred demand for power devices with improved efficiency and lower loss characteristics.

Renesas responded by introducing SiC Schottky barrier diode (SiC-SBD) products employing SiC to achieve reduced loss. This is now followed by a series of SiC compound power devices that implement a circuit (switching, power conversion, etc.) in a single package by combining an SiC-SBD and high-power MOSFETs or IGBTs.

The new products have a voltage tolerance of 600 V and use an SiC diode based on low-leakage SiC-SBD technology developed jointly by Hitachi Ltd and Renesas. They combine low loss and compactness and are available in a fully molded TO-3P package with a 5-pin configuration and pin assignments optimized for specific applications, making it easy to configure a circuit unit incorporating them.