Infineon introduces 1200 V Silicon Carbide MOSFET technology

Infineon Technologies has introduced a 1200 V silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET technology for exceptional efficiency and performance in power conversion.

The company in a statement said its CoolSiC MOSFETs offer a new degree of flexibility for increasing efficiency and frequency and help developers of power conversion schemes to save space and weight, reduce cooling requirements, improve reliability and lower system costs.

“For more than twenty years, Infineon has been at the forefront of developing SiC solutions which address demands for energy savings, size reduction, system integration and improved reliability,” said Dr. Helmut Gassel, President of Infineon’s Industrial Power Control Division. “Infineon has manufactured millions of products containing SiC devices, while our Schottky diode and J-FET technologies have allowed designers to achieve power density and performance not possible with conventional silicon. The strategy has now taken a significant step forward encompassing power MOSFETs that raise the benefits available from SiC technology to a new level, which has never before been possible.”

SiC MOSFET’s power conversion schemes can operate at triple or more the switching frequency in use today reducing the copper and aluminum materials used in magnetics and system housing, facilitating smaller and lighter systems for less transportation effort and easier installation. New solutions supporting energy savings will be realized by the designers of power conversion applications said the company. These applications can harness performance, efficiency and system flexibility in a completely new dimension.

The new 1200 V SiC MOSFETs have been optimized to combine reliability with performance. They operate with ‘benchmark’ dynamic losses that are an order of magnitude lower than 1200 V silicon (Si) IGBTs. This initially supports system improvements in applications such as photovoltaic inverters; uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) or charger/storage systems, while later configurations will also extend support to industrial drives.

The MOSFETs are fully compatible with the +15 V/-5 V voltages typically used to drive IGBTs. They combine a benchmark threshold voltage rating (V_th) of 4 V with short-circuit robustness required by the target applications and fully controllable dv/dt characteristics. Key benefits over Si IGBT alternatives include temperature-independent switching losses and threshold-voltage-free on-state characteristics.

The new MOSFETs are based on a state-of-the-art trench semiconductor process and represent the latest evolution of Infineon’s comprehensive family of CoolSiC technologies.

The first discrete 1200 V CoolSiC MOSFETs feature on-resistance (R_{DS (ON)}) ratings of just 45 mΩ. They will be available in 3-pin and 4-pin TO-247 packages targeted at photovoltaic inverters, UPS, battery charging and energy storage applications.. The 4-pin package incorporates an additional (Kelvin) connection to the source, which is used as a reference potential for the gate driving voltage. By eliminating the effect of voltage drops due to source inductance, this further reduces switching losses, especially at higher switching frequencies.

Infineon has also announced 1200 V ‘Easy1B’ half-bridge and booster modules based on the SiC MOSFET technology. Combining PressFIT connections with a good thermal interface, low stray inductance and robust design.

Infineon will start sampling for target applications in the second half of 2016, with volume production planned for 2017.