The CoolSiC Second Generation Roadmap
The launch follows the company’s first generation of CoolSiC devices that were originally released in 2017. That first generation of devices proved popular with designers, offering reliability, ruggedness and ease of control through the company’s driver ICs. The range of SiC MOSFETs expanded to become available in a wide range of products in a variety of packages and modules. According to Infineon, the new second generation will improve on its predecessor by offering designers better reliability and performance while remaining price competitive.
Dr. Peter Friedrichs, Vice President SiC at Infineon described the performance features and benefits of the second generation by saying, “We’ve improved the major figures of merit relevant for power devices. The new devices offer 20% lower power losses over typical load use cases, which is further improved by the .XT packaging that can provide around 12% better thermal resistance. The devices offer best in class RDSon, including single digit numbers in discrete packages for both 650V and 1200V. They have a large maximum gate/source voltage which means that the devices can operate from a voltage from -10 to 23 volts, giving designers complete flexibility to drive the devices. Generation 2 also has a better RDSon per area, which allows a smaller die. Despite that die shrinkage, the devices feature a 10% lower Rth, which in combination with advanced thermal resistance of the .XT packaging means that it is possible to use higher currents, or to lower the temperature for increased reliability, or to switch up to 60% faster”.
The performance figures mean that it is possible to manufacture the MOSFETs in SMT packages with large power handling capabilities. For example, the eight milliohm 1200 V in a D2PAK-7L package can handle more than 50 kW.
The company has also worked on the reliability and robustness of the new devices. Friedrichs continued, “Generation 2 devices also feature additional robustness. For example, the overload capability - the MOSFETs can operate at 200 oC for about 10% of their total lifetime, and all the devices feature a 1200V blocking voltage rating. We maintain the short circuit robustness from the first generation, and of course we also maintain the high reliability”.
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