News

PCIM Europe Kicks-off with Flurry of Product Announcements

May 17, 2011 by Jeff Shepard

The 2011 edition of PCIM Europe in Nuremberg, Germany, started off with a flurry of product announcements from International Rectifier (IR), Vincotech, Mitsubishi Electric, AVX and ROHM Semiconductor. These products targeted a wide variety of applications from automotive and white goods to lighting and renewable energy.

From its prominent position at the entrance of the exhibition area, IR introduced a family of automotive qualified MOSFETs housed in a novel WideLead TO-262 package that reduces lead resistance by 50% compared to traditional TO-262 packages while offering 30% higher current.

In standard TO-262 through-hole packages, source and drain leads can add up to 1mΩ of resistance, in addition to the on-state resistance (Rds(on)) of the MOSFET. The new WideLead TO-262 through-hole package reduces lead resistance to less than half a milliohm, greatly reducing conduction losses and heating in the leads to deliver 30% more current carrying capability than a traditional TO-262 package for a given operating temperature.

"The new WideLead TO-262 package design was inspired by the excellent performance of the ultra-low die free package resistance of the DirectFET® package and the limitations of the traditional TO-262 package," noted Benjamin Jackson, Product Manager, IR’s Automotive Products Business Unit.

"This new family of MOSFETs housed in IR’s novel WideLead package drastically lowers conduction losses and reduces self-heating in the leads while delivering high current to provide a robust and reliable solution for automotive applications, Jackson concluded"

Down the row from IR, in near-by booths, Vincotech and Mitsubishi introduced new integrated module solutions targeted at a variety of applications including white goods. In both cases, increased flexibility and optional features were key elements of the announcements.

Mitsubishi introduced the 5th generation Super Mini-DIPIPM (Dual Inline Package Intelligent Power Module) family for three-phase inverter applications targeting low-power applications like white goods and similar low-power motor drives. The new devices feature bootstrap diodes as well as N-side open Emitter. Protection functions against short circuit, under voltage and over temperature with fault signal output are integrated.

The Mitsubishi devices are available with automatic over temperature protection or with build-in analog output measuring the operating temperature in order to add flexibility in controlling the upper limit of operating temperatures.

Vincotech announced that the flowIMP 1B is now available without power factor correction. This smaller module is targeted at space-constrained applications up to 1kW such as white goods, fans, pumps and small industrial motor drives. The flowIMP family offers devices rated for 4A and 10A and are delivered as complete inverter solutions in a 17mm high package.

Also targeting a host of industrial applications as well as telecommunications equipment, LED TVs and power supplies for notebook computers, AVX announced the capability to make tantalum polymer capacitors rated for 125V. Engineering samples in limited quantities of the new TCJ series devices will be available starting in July.

AVX developed the new devices by optimizing processes which enhance capacitor performance and working in close cooperation with polymer suppliers. Conductive polymer has been proven to provide low ESR and reduced ignition failure mode solutions for capacitors. However, the working voltage of tantalum-polymer capacitors was limited until now due to the maximum achievable breakdown voltage. AVX’s new developments in polymer technology are expected to result in even higher-rated devices in the future.

In the back of the exhibition hall and across from the Forum stage where vendor presentations were taking place continuously, ROHM was announcing the BP5275 series of step-down dc-dc converter modules that integrate all required external components, including input and output capacitors. These 1.5 MHz devices include synchronous rectification to deliver 93% efficiency while producing an output current up to 800mA.

These devices are pin-compatible with standard LDOs. They are offered in a range of output voltages including 1.8, 2.5, 3.3, 5.0V, and so on. And operate from input voltages of 5- to 6-Vdc. The accompanying product photo featured two targeted applications, washing machines and industrial control systems.