Nexperia Announces Wide-Bandgap Plans

A few months ago, in my weekly TechTalk newsletter I wrote about the 20^th anniversary of Nexperia’s LFPAK technology. At the time of its introduction, the new packaging was revolutionary and offered many advantages to designers. For example, instead of bonding wires, the technique used copper clips to provide a better electrical connection that was also more rugged.

Now, the company has launched a new package design that is intended to provide the same benefits, especially for wide-bandgap materials and other applications of 650V and over. The CCPAK package uses the same copper-clip package technology to reduce parasitic losses, optimize electrical and thermal performance, and improve device reliability. Top- or bottom-cooled configurations will be available to further improve heat dissipation. The company has just launched its first CCPAK package, containing GaN cascode FETs.

Carlos Castro, Vice President and General Manager GaN at Nexperia describes the advantages of the new CCPAK, “GaN is a great technology that offers benefits in terms of performance, efficiency, power, density and system cost. It is important not to have a bottleneck in terms of performance when it comes to the package. CCPAK gives us really high-quality robustness, along with performance. The package offers very low parasitic inductance that translates into low switching losses, as well as fewer EMI problems. We see power conversion going above 99% for both SiC and GaN designs because you can have higher switching frequencies with less losses. Increasing the switching frequencies means passive component sizes can be reduced for higher power density. High current handling is also necessary for these applications, and the CCPAK has a really low thermal resistance that dissipates heat very well.”

The first product that Nexperia will launch with CCPAK is a top-cooled 33 mΩ (typ.), 650 V GaN FET, which will be followed by a bottom-cooled variant with the same RDS(on). The cascode configuration enables simpler designs by eliminating the need for complex gate drivers and control circuitry.

That is not the only news from Nexperia on the subject of wide-bandgap semiconductors. The company has also announced that it has entered the SiC market with the signing of a strategic long-term partnership with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. The collaboration will see Nexperia’s component development, production and qualification expertise combined with Mitsubishi’s reliable and high-performance SiC modules.

Katrin Feurle, Senior Director and Head of Product Group SiC Diodes & FETs said of the partnership, “This collaboration allows us to respond to the market demand of having more choice in the wide bandgap area. The co-development partnership will leverage the technologies of both companies and assist both companies in their mission to rapidly grow in the power semiconductor area”.

The first two SiC MOSFETs to be launched by Nexperia are two 1200 V discrete devices in TO-247 packaging with RDSon values of 40 mΩ and 80 mΩ. This portfolio will quickly expand to include devices with 20,40,80 and 120 mΩ RDSon in a choice of packages.

PSD