Siliconix Introduces Micro Foot MOSFET Technology
Siliconix Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) has unveiled a chip-scale power MOSFET packaging technology that they claim will greatly reduce the size of the devices required to manage and convert power in cellular phones and handheld internet appliances.
The new Vishay Siliconix Micro Foot devices use a solder bump process along with proprietary techniques developed at Siliconix to eliminate the need for an outer package to encase the power MOSFET die. Siliconix claims that the Micro Foot devices have the same performance as devices packaged in the TSOP-6, but in a footprint that is 70 percent smaller and with a 50 percent lower height profile.
“Minimizing the board space required by power semiconductors is crucial to enabling new generations of cell phones and other portable information appliances that will make the wireless internet an affordable reality," said Dr. Felix Zandman, Chairman and CEO of Vishay. “With Micro Foot, we're giving mobile communications designers a footprint and height profile that is an order of magnitude smaller than the TSOP-6 power MOSFETs they use now, and with no sacrifice in performance."
Vishay Siliconix Micro Foot devices are being sampled by selected customers now. Production quantities of the first Micro Foot devices will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2001.
