Power Semiconductors

May 2022
Navitas: World's First CarbonNeutral-Certified Semiconductor Company

Gene Sheridan, Navitas CEO and co-founder

­Navitas Semiconductor announced that it is the world’s first semiconductor company to achieve CarbonNeutral-company certification from the leading experts on carbon-neutrality and climate finance, Natural Capital Partners. Achieving CarbonNeutral-company certification is another milestone towards Navitas’ mi
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Date:
05/27/2022
Digital Quarter-Brick DC/DC Features Increased Power Rating to 1700 W Peak
­Flex Power Modules has introduced an enhanced version of their popular BMR350 non-isolated quarter-brick DC/DC bus converter, the BMR350 x250/531. Continuous power rating has been increased from 860 W to 1300 W, with a peak power capability of 1700 W. The product maintains the same footprint of 58.4 mm x 3
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Date:
05/13/2022
Two Terminal Bipolar Power Supply

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Figure 1. An electrical schematic of a power supply based on the LT8714 operating in two quadrants VIN 12 V, VO ±5 V at 6 A

­A 2-quadrant power supply — one that provides a positive or negative voltage to the same output terminals — can easily be produced using the LT8714 4-quadrant controller. The 2-quadrant supply shown here can be used in a variety of applications ranging from window tinting — where changing polarity ch
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Date:
05/01/2022
Power Semiconductors: Learning from History
­When I first entered the semiconductor market it was dominated by big players who could afford to put up their own manufacturing and fabs. Some in leadership had an arrogant attitude that seemed to imply: “look at my great manufacturing processes that these customers are screwing up with their orders and re
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Date:
05/01/2022
Drive Your Power Applications to the Next Level with GaN

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Figure 1: The block diagram of the MDC901 GaN gate driver

­The entire ecosystem surrounding GaN HEMTs, which includes active and passive components like gate drivers, inductors and capacitors as well as the design techniques to implement the devices effectively, must quickly evolve to realize GaN’s full potential. As the device directly controlling the GaN HEMTs, th
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Date:
05/01/2022
Precision Ultra-Low-Power High-Side Current Sense

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Figure 1. Precision high-side current sense circuit based on the LTC2063 zero-drift amplifier

­Precision high-side measurement of microamp currents requires a small value sense resistor and a low offset voltage amplifier. The LTC2063 zero-drift amplifier has a maximum input offset voltage of just 5 µV and draws just 1.4 µA, making it a great choice for building a complete ultra low power, precision hi
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Date:
05/01/2022
A Look at the Advantages of 4th Generation SiC MOSFETs

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Figure 1: The evolution of process technologies improves upon the trench gate structure for a lowered on-resistance per unit area

­Power is arguably the most critical part of next-generation electric vehicles, alternative energy systems, and data centers, and industrial power supplies are increasingly reliant on efficient operations to save on energy costs and increase the effectiveness of their subsystems/equipment. In these applications, eve
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Date:
05/01/2022
Optimizing Data Center Intermediate Bus Voltage for Significant System Efficiency Improvements

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Figure 1: Data center energy use has stayed flat even with exponential traffic increase. Source: IEA

­While system designers have worked to get more data throughput without proportionally increasing power draw, there has been equal pressure to squeeze better efficiency out of the power delivery system, to reduce losses, consequent costs and cooling system overhead. Power converter designers have responded wi
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Date:
05/01/2022
Unlocking Super Compute Performance

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Figure 1. Power delivery and power efficiency has become the largest concern in large scale computing systems. The industry has witnessed a dramatic increase in power consumed by processors with the advent of ASICs and GPUs processing complex AI functions. Rack power has also subsequently increased with AI capability being utilized in large scale learning and inferencing application deployments. In most cases, power delivery is now the limiting factor in computing performance as new CPUs look to consume ever increasing currents. Power delivery entails not just the distribution of power but also the efficiency, size, cost and thermal performance

­The increasing complexity and variety of compute workloads demand immense processing capabilities. Whether used in a cloud data center or on-premise, a new breed of processors is able to increase throughput and reduce latency. However, processor advances are pushing power delivery boundaries. As a result, po
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Date:
05/01/2022
Ensuring Resilience Within Power Applications

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Figure 1: 1200A MPE HEMP Filter

­In recent years strengthened legislation, particularly in the USA and the EU, has seen power and utility companies having to consider electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats within their sites. Legislation now dictates that the resilience of power systems against interruption or
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Date:
05/01/2022
Why Calculating Capacitor Lifetime Makes Sense

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Figure 1: An electrolytic capacitor essentially consists of an anode and cathode film, separator paper, and electrolytes

­Electrolytic and polymer hybrid capacitors have an almost identical design: they consist of a cathode side and an anode side, which in turn are both made of aluminum film. The film for the anode is subjected to an oxidation process, which creates an aluminum oxide layer forming the dielectric. Both films are ro
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Date:
05/01/2022
Direct Drive of SiC JFET – Extracting Maximum Performance

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Figure 1: Unipolar RDS∙A versus breakdown voltage data by technology (room temperature)

­The silicon carbide (SiC) JFET is arguably the most ideal switch technology for an application requiring minimum conduction loss, such as solid-state relay (SSR), solid-state circuit breaker (SSCB), and high power motor drive.  Its low on-resistance per unit area (RDS∙A) and fast switching compete well
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Date:
05/01/2022
PCIM and Power Semiconductors
It feels like forever since I’ve been to an exhibition, but in reality it has only been just over two years since I visited Embedded World in Nuremberg at the very start of the pandemic. To be honest, that particular event was a bit quiet, as it was just before the first lockdowns and many companies didn’t wa
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Date:
05/01/2022
PCIM Europe Goes Live Again…Just in Time for a Quintessential Issue Theme
­Two steps forward, one step back. Because of a recent uptick in COVID cases, my local metro area, Philadelphia, reimposed the mask mandate, becoming the only major city in the U.S. to have an indoor mask mandate. That’s not exactly encouraging news…. Even my son’s school district (Cherry Hill,
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Date:
05/01/2022