New Industry Products

Infineon Introduces a 600V Integrated Power Stage (IPS)

May 20, 2021 by Gary Elinoff

The new IPS combines the company’s CoolGaN GaN transistors with an EiceDRIVER gate driver into a compact QFN package

The IGI60F1414A1L IPS group is a member of the CoolGaN IPS family. It is designed for operation in the 30 to 500 watt power range.



The IGI60F1414A1L IPS is a member of the 30 to 500 watt CoolGaN IPS family. Image courtesy of Infineon
The IGI60F1414A1L IPS is a member of the 30 to 500 watt CoolGaN IPS family. Image courtesy of Infineon


 

The CoolGaN IPS family is the latest addition to Infineon’s portfolio of WBG power devices. The IGI60F1414A1L IPS includes two 600 volt, 140 milliohm RDS(ON) CoolGaN e-mode HEMT switches. The other building blocks of the device are galvanically isolated high-side and low-side gate drivers out of Infineon’s EiceDRIVE family. 

 

The Road to Gallium Nitride

Gallium Nitride (GaN) devices such as the IGI60F1414A1L feature high electron mobility transistors (HEMP) that feature better than twice the electron mobility as compared to last-generation silicon power switches. The output and gate charges are ten times less, and the reverse recovery charge is almost nil. This enables higher switching frequencies, which in turn lead to greater efficiencies, less waste heat and, most importantly, a lower potential boardspace requirement.

 

Block diagram for the IGI60F1414A1L. Image courtesy of Infineon
Block diagram for the IGI60F1414A1L. Image courtesy of Infineon

 

But the engineering challenges are not trivial. That’s why Infineon, as well as many other manufacturers, are integrating driver and power switch in the same package. The IGI60F1414A1L is a manifestation of this trend, eliminating the need for OEMs to maintain a large specialized engineering staff and slashing time to market.

 

Availability

The IPS portfolio consists of half-bridge and single-channel units, aimed at medium and low power use cases. As of this writing, only the half-bridge IGI60F1414A1L is available. Also planned, all available in 8 x 8 mm QFN packages, are the:

 

  • IGI60F2020A1L with a 200mΩ RDS(ON)
  • IGI60F2727A1L with a 270mΩ RDS(ON). This unit will also be available in a 6 x 8 mm QFN-26 package
  • IGI60F5050A1L with a 500mΩ RDS(ON)

 

Easy to Control

The isolation between the control and power sections, the two separate digital and power grounds and the two PWM inputs make the IGI60F1414A1L an easy to control device. That isolation, based on Infineon’s on-chip coreless transformer (CT) technology, contributes to the unit’s exceptional robustness, even in the presence of transients with voltage slopes of 150 volts per nanosecond.

The IGI60F1414A1L’s switching characteristics are readily adapted to the various needs of designers through the inclusion of a few passive components in the device’s gate path. Thus, the slew rate can be optimized for reduced EMI, steady-state gate current setting and negative gate drive for steady operation in hard-switched situations.

 

Minimizing Dead Times

The high level of system-in-package (SIP) integration, along with the stability of the gate drivers’ propagation delays allows for exceptionally low system dead times. The result is a highly efficient device that enables a power density of up to 35 watts per cubic inch.

 

Applications

The new devices will be especially useful in switched mode power supplies (SMPS) employed in:

  • Motor drives
  • USB-PD chargers and adapters
  • Wall plugs
  • Switched mode power supplies (SMPS)
  • Ultrathin TV power supply 

 

Physical 

  • IGI60F1414A1L is available in a thermally enhanced 8 x 8 mm QFN-28 package

 

Getting to Market Faster

Infineon offers the EVAL_HB_GANIPS_G1, an evaluation board featuring theIGI60F1414A1L. The board can be configured for buck or boost evaluation, pulse testing of continuous operation at full power.