Amantys Pens Agreements with Fuji Electric, Hitachi Europe and Dynex

On the second day of PCIM Europe, Amantys Ltd. announced several important commercial developments including; the launch of two new IGBT gate drivers for high-power 2-pack modules with Fuji Electric, an agreement to cooperate in the promotion and sale of IGBT module gate drivers with Hitachi Europe initially encompassing Amantys' power drives at 3.3kV and 4.5kV operating voltages with current ratings up to 3,600A and a collaboration agreement with Dynex Semiconductor to integrate 4,500V IGBT modules with gate drives from Amantys in the EMEF "Lusogate" modular traction system, currently undergoing extensive system field trials in Portugal.

Amantys and Fuji Electric today announced the launch of two new IGBT gate drivers, the AP12BA2A and AP17BA2A gate drives operate at 1200V and 1700V respectively and current ratings from 450A to 1400A. The Amantys IGBT gate drivers include the Amantys Power Insight condition monitoring hardware and software subsystem to observe and report critical power switching characteristics. The Amantys Power Drives for High Power 2-Pack are fully integrated and, along with several other key parameters, also measure and export the temperature of the High Power 2-Pack baseplate thermistor; Insight reuses the existing PWM and fault interface, greatly simplifying the design in process.

Commenting on this announcement, Fuji Electric’s European General Manager Maki Miyamoto said “This product launch builds on the significant success we have achieved with the Fuji Electric range of High Power IGBT Modules especially in high end applications.”

He went on to add “The unique Amantys Power Insight monitoring means that customers can now observe and tune system performance in each stage of development, as well as through equipment commissioning and into operation. We believe Amantys Power Insight gives the power equipment manufacturer a platform to enhance system efficiency and reliability.”

Karen Oddey, CEO at Amantys, commented “In cooperating with Fuji Electric, it has become clear that our two companies have a shared vision to improve the reliability of high power electronics systems.” She went on to add, “By providing increased visibility of the switching process, Amantys Power Insight will enhance system availability in applications such as wind turbine inverters, grid tie PV inverters and motor drives.”

Amantys and Hitachi Europe anticipate securing new designs in applications such as wind turbine inverters, locomotive traction and medium voltage industrial drives. As well as offering superior performance with isolated power supply, faster start-up and recovery times, and improved creepage and clearance, the Amantys IGBT gate drivers incorporate Amantys Power Insight condition monitoring technology to observe and report critical power switching characteristics in real time using existing interfaces.

Commenting on this announcement, Hirokazu Miyata, General Manager, Power Device Division at Hitachi Europe Ltd said “Europe is an important market for Hitachi high power IGBT modules, and we are looking forward to cooperating with Amantys to provide our customers with the advantages of Amantys Power Insight technology. This unique capability will give designers and operators information about the condition of the power switch, even during operation, which will have a major impact on system efficiency, reliability and availability.”

Karen Oddey, at Amantys continued “This agreement marks a commercial breakthrough for Amantys and Hitachi. The ability to offer the combined solution of IGBT Module and Gate Driver allows the two companies to optimize performance for individual customer’s applications.”

As already announced last week, Amantys is demonstrating the deployment of Amantys Power Insight™ monitoring capability in a live traction application at PCIM 2013 this week. In the course of this development, Amantys collaborated with Dynex Semiconductor to integrate 4,500Volt IGBT modules with gate drives from Amantys in the EMEF “Lusogate” modular traction system, currently undergoing extensive system field trials in Portugal.