Published: March 10, 2010
SemiSouth Announces New Reference Design for its Energy-Efficient 1200 V SiC FET
STARKVILLE, Miss. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - SemiSouth today announced that a new gate reference design is available
for its energy-efficient SiC FET, which is a normally-off 63 mΩ, 1200 V,
JFET consuming 7-to-10 times less switching energy than the insulated
gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) typically used in ac distribution
networks.
The peak gate current of the driver is +6 A / - 3 A, and is extremely
helpful to customers who are designing in or ramping new designs using
SemiSouth's SiC FET since full schematics and bill of materials is
provided in the datasheet. "This new reference design allows our
customers to add a standard gate driver with a bill of materials cost
that is extremely low, since we are using all standard, off the shelf
commercial components for the very compact (28 mm x 19 mm) reference
driver board," commented Dan Schwob, SemiSouth's VP of Sales &
Marketing. Since releasing the SiC FET in late 2008, SemiSouth has seen
widespread adoption of this popular power transistor because of its
advantages in energy efficiency, reliability, and cost relative to other
SiC technologies.
According to Dr. Jeff Casady, CTO & VP of Business Development, "The
SGDR600P1 is an opto-isolated, two-stage driver, used for high-speed,
hard-switching of our normally-off 1200 V JFET, which enables customers
to quickly and easily obtain record low switching (and total) losses at
frequencies up to 250 kHz."
SiC is an emerging semiconductor technology enabling energy efficient
operation of power conversion and power management in telecom power
supplies, inverters in solar and high-frequency welding, future
automotive electric vehicle platforms, and many other products. The true
promise of SiC is its ability to make power supplies and power inverters
up to 50-75% more energy efficient, operate at up to four to eight times
higher frequency, and as a result run cooler and be physically much
smaller in size. As an example, SiC power JFETs are expected to increase
the 'fuel' efficiency of hybrid electric vehicles and help make them
more affordable for consumers.
About SemiSouth Laboratories, Inc.
SemiSouth, a privately owned corporation with offices in Starkville,
Mississippi, focuses on SiC power devices and electronics. It was formed
in 2000, and has sold products globally through direct sales or
distributors since 2005. It introduced the world's first commercial,
cost-effective normally-off SiC JFET in 2008, which have enabled
world-record energy efficiencies for its customer's products. More
information can be obtained from its web site (www.semisouth.com).
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SemiSouth Laboratories, Inc.
Dan Schwob, 662-324-7607
Dan.Schwob@semisouth.com
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