Fairchild SiC solutions offer efficiency and improved reliability

USA: In an effort to achieve higher power density, and to meet strict efficiency regulations and system up-time requirements, industrial and power electronic designers are challenged with constantly reducing power losses and improving reliability in their designs.

However, improving these critical design capabilities in applications like renewable energy, industrial motor drives, high-density power supplies, automotive, and down-hole can complicate a design as well as drive overall system costs higher.

To help designers meet these challenges, Fairchild Semiconductor, a leading global supplier of high-performance power and mobile semiconductor solutions, extends its leadership position in innovative high-performance power transistor technology with the announcement of silicon carbide (SiC) technology solutions ideally suited for power conversion systems.

By introducing SiC-based offerings into its product mix, Fairchild reinforces its product leadership in innovative, high-performance power transistor technology.

Fairchild’s SiC capabilities include:
* Optimized, semi-standard, and customized technical solutions that take advantage of its large portfolio of semiconductor devices and module packaging technologies.
* Advanced technologies that simplify engineering challenges with functional integration and design support resources that minimize components while reducing engineering time.
* Meeting the needs of device manufacturers and chipset suppliers by integrating leading device technologies into smaller advanced packages that offer size, cost and power advantages.

Among the first products to be released in Fairchild’s SiC portfolio is a family of advanced SiC bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) that offer high efficiency, high-current density, robustness, and easy high-temperature operation. By leveraging exceptionally efficient transistors, Fairchild’s SiC BJTs enable higher switching frequencies due to lower conduction and switching losses (ranging from 30-50 percent) that provide up to 40 percent higher output power in the same system form factor.

Enabling the use of smaller inductors, capacitors and heat sinks, these robust BJTs can lower overall system costs up to 20 percent. With performance levels that drive much higher efficiency and superior short-circuit and reverse bias safe operating area, these industry-leading SiC BJTs will play a significant role in optimizing the power management of high-power conversion applications.

Fairchild, as part of a complete silicon carbide solution, also has developed “plug-n-play” discrete driver boards (a 15A and 50A version) that, when used in conjunction with Fairchild’s advanced SiC BJTs, not only provide increased switching speeds for reduced switching losses and better reliability, but also allow designers to easily implement SiC technology into their applications.

Application notes, which provide designers the additional support necessary to design with SiC devices, and reference designs that allow for the development of driver boards to meet specific application needs, are also available from Fairchild and are intended to reduce design time and shorten time-to-market.

Fairchild’s SiC BJTs are available in a TO-247 package and engineering samples are available now for qualified customers.