ON Semiconductor: How to design competitive application solutions faster

Energy infrastructure such as solar energy, electric vehicle charging piles, energy storage, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), automation control such as industrial control, human-machine interface, machine vision, motor drive such as industrial servo, variable frequency drive, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), and industrial segments such as robots and power tools are popular applications in the current market. When designing these applications, engineers require higher energy efficiency, power density and reliability. As the world's second largest supplier of power discrete and module semiconductors, ON Semiconductor provides a wide range of products with rich power expertise, from silicon to silicon carbide (SiC), from discrete devices to power modules, as well as gate drivers, operational amplifiers, optocouplers, etc., and even complete reference designs, online design tools WebDesigner+, cloud platform development tools Strata Developer Studio and on-site application support to help engineers solve design challenges and design competitive solutions faster.

Solar Energy Solutions

As energy and environmental issues become increasingly prominent, solar energy, as a clean and renewable energy source, has a promising future. Solar power generation is essentially a direct current (DC) technology that requires an inverter (DC-AC) to generate electricity. Switching from silicon to SiC semiconductors can achieve a leap in energy efficiency and performance. With cost optimization, more and more manufacturers are beginning to use SiC to replace the original silicon-based inverter circuits to achieve faster switching speeds, lower losses, lower inductor/capacitor costs, and more compact sizes. In addition to providing a variety of silicon-based 3-level inverter modules and boost modules with output powers ranging from 5 kW to 250 kW, ON Semiconductor also provides a large lineup of SiC MOSFET and SiC diode solutions, as well as gate drivers, operational amplifiers and other products.

Among them, the NXH40B120MNQ series full SiC boost power module has been selected by Delta, a world-leading supplier of power and thermal management solutions, to support its M70A three-phase photovoltaic string inverter, achieving a peak energy conversion efficiency of up to 98.8%. The use of SiC technology provides the low reverse recovery and fast switching characteristics required to achieve the high efficiency levels required in applications such as solar inverters.

The following are the boost and inverter modules recommended by ON Semiconductor. These modules integrate high-speed IGBTs and Si/SiC diodes to achieve high energy efficiency and compact design, built-in thermistors to provide high reliability, and solder/press-fit pins for easy mounting.

Table 1: Recommended boost and inverter modules for solar power generation

High-performance IGBTs, intelligent power modules (IPMs) and power integrated modules (PIMs) for industrial drive control

Unmanned and intelligent operation is becoming a trend, and motor drive systems are often the core of achieving energy saving. ON Semiconductor provides products including discrete IGBT, IPM and PIM to help improve the energy efficiency of industrial systems and meet the ever-increasing demand for energy efficiency.

Engineers usually evaluate the performance of an IGBT from three aspects: saturation voltage drop, turn-off loss, and impact resistance. They need to make trade-offs in the design of IGBTs according to different applications. ON Semiconductor's latest IGBT process technology is the fourth-generation field-stop trench IGBT process for 950 V, 750 V, and 650 V, which brings the industry's best saturation voltage drop design and switching performance design. At the same time, the 1200 V third-generation field-stop IGBT process of the ultra-field stop (UFS) process represents the world's best process level, with greatly improved impact resistance, and the switching performance and saturation voltage drop levels are ahead of competitors.

ON Semiconductor's discrete IGBT product series for drive control has strong impact resistance and can support current levels from 3 A to 160 A, including various packages from DPAK to Power 247. The fully plastic-encapsulated IGBT series adopts TO-3PF package design, which does not require insulating gaskets, reduces installation costs and improves work efficiency. At the same time, it can reduce thermal resistance loss caused by insulating gaskets and increase power density.

IPM packages IGBT, high and low voltage driver chips, peripheral resistors and capacitors, and diodes in one module, achieving more sensitive and accurate protection functions, simpler peripheral component design, simpler production processes, and better heat dissipation performance. ON Semiconductor provides a full range of 1200 V and 650 V/600 V IPM products with a maximum power level of 7.5kW, using different substrate technologies (direct-bonded copper substrate (DBC), ceramic substrate, insulated metal substrate (IMST)) to meet different applications and cost requirements such as industrial inverters, HVAC, pumps, industrial fans, air conditioners, white appliances, and even emerging industrial robots.

In the field of medium and large power industrial control, in order to support a variety of options for drive circuits, ON Semiconductor has launched PIM modules, such as the latest die-cast power integrated module (TM-PIM), which is widely used in central air conditioning, frequency conversion control and servo control. TM-PIM integrates 3-phase converter, inverter and brake, and adopts innovative process, reliable substrate and epoxy resin die-casting technology. It has a 10-fold increase in thermal cycle service life and a 3-fold increase in power cycle service life compared to ordinary gel-filled power modules. It will help customers to achieve a long service life and high reliability of terminal inverter systems. The module uses an advanced thick copper substrate, eliminating the bottom plate, reducing the volume by 57% compared to ordinary modules, and increasing the thermal resistance by 30%, greatly increasing the power density.

Electric vehicle charging station solution

Driven by a series of policies such as government energy-saving and environmental protection regulations and new infrastructure, automobiles are rapidly moving towards electric vehicles. The market expects charging piles to achieve higher peak energy efficiency to save charging time and increase driving range. Charging piles are divided into 4 levels according to charging capacity. Most existing charging piles are level 1 or 2. Consumers are most interested in DC fast charging. With the increase in power and speed requirements, the demand for MOS and SiC is getting stronger. The SiC solution will be 10 times smaller than the silicon solution, use 60% less power when charging, and achieve 99% peak energy efficiency.

Table 3: Electric vehicle charging piles are divided into 4 levels according to charging capacity

ON Semiconductor provides a wide range of solutions for charging piles, including high-performance MOSFET, IGBT and SiC product lineups, achieving higher energy efficiency, more environmentally friendly, faster, smaller, lighter, more cost-effective and faster cooling advantages. Its MOSFET and SiC lineups are as follows:

Table 4: Charging pile MOS – Easy Drive: for hard/soft switching, easy to drive, low EMI and voltage spikes, optimized internal Rg and capacitance

Table 5: Charging pile MOS – FRFET: used in soft switching topology, smaller Qrr and Trr for higher system reliability

Table 6: Charging pile SiC diodes

Table 7: Charging pile SiC diodes: 1.5 generation reduced forward voltage drop (1st generation forward voltage drop = 1.5 V) and Qc

Table 8: Charging pile SiC MOSFET

The following is a 15 kW/20 kW electric vehicle charging pile solution: using PFC + LLC topology, including 6 Easy Drive MOSFET FCH040N65S3/FCH029N65S3, 6 SiC diodes FFSH20120A/FFSH30120A, 8 FRFET MOSFET NTHL040N65S3F/NTHL033N65S3HF, and 16 SiC diodes FFSH2065B/FFSH3065B at the output. SiC diodes can provide excellent switching performance and have higher reliability than silicon, no reverse recovery current, temperature-independent switching characteristics and excellent thermal performance, so that the system has higher energy efficiency, faster operating frequency, improved power density, reduced EMI, and reduced system size and cost.

Figure 2: Typical application diagram of electric vehicle charging pile

Server and Industrial Power Supply Market

5G and cloud data center power supplies have very high requirements for high energy efficiency and power density. SiC devices have an energy efficiency of up to 98%, which is perfectly suited to the development of the 5G and cloud power markets. SiC diodes are used in passive PFC stages, while gallium nitride (GaN)/SiC becomes the choice for totem poles and LLC stages. Under the conditions of input voltage of 220 V to 230 V and output voltage of 400 V, ordinary silicon PFC solutions use continuous conduction mode (CCM), dual boost, and full-bridge topology, with energy efficiency of less than 95%. Two inductors limit the switching frequency, and the number of devices is large, which occupies a large space. The SiC-enabled PFC solution uses a flyback totem pole to achieve higher energy efficiency (98%), frequency, power density, and bidirectional power flow, with fewer devices. Totem pole PFC is a cost-effective solution for building 80PLUS® Titanium standard power supplies for data centers, computing applications, and vehicle battery chargers. Controllers such as Solantro’s SA8000-N TP-PFC combined with ON Semiconductor’s SiC MOSFETs help achieve over 99% energy efficiency and provide optimized switching modes, reliable startup, high power density and lower power losses.

Auxiliary power supply solution

Whether it is energy infrastructure, electric vehicle charging piles, or servers, auxiliary power is required. The flyback converter is the most popular auxiliary power topology because it has a lower number of components and bill of materials (BOM) cost. For output power levels less than 30 W, AC-DC switching power supplies with built-in high-voltage MOSFETs are the preferred approach for easy design and compact size. ON Semiconductor offers a wide range of AC-DC power switch products with built-in high-voltage MOSFETs from 3 W to 30 W, including NCP107x, NCP1067x, and FSL5x8. For output power levels > 30W, an AC-DC controller IC plus external MOSSET approach is usually adopted to provide design flexibility and simplify thermal management. To improve power density and conversion efficiency, ON Semiconductor provides a high-frequency quasi-resonant (QR) flyback solution using NCP1342 and a zero voltage switching (ZVS) active clamp flyback solution using NCP1568. Transformer design is the key to flyback design. To help power supply design reduce development workload, ON Semiconductor provides a series of turnkey reference designs and design spreadsheet tools.

ON Semiconductor's Wide Bandgap Ecosystem

Wide bandgap can achieve energy efficiency and performance leaps in designs such as solar inverters, server power supplies, and electric vehicle charging stations. ON Semiconductor has a unique wide bandgap ecosystem, including 650 V, 1200 V, and 1700 V SiC diodes, 650 V, 750 V, 900 V, 1200 V, and 1700 V SiC MOSFETs (all of which meet automotive certification standards), GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), SiC and GaN drivers and integrated modules, as well as solutions, simulation models, and design software. It also collaborates with multiple companies across the supply chain to reduce prices and speed up time to market. Its physics-based model platform can provide performance over the entire temperature range before engineers test the device.

Summarize

ON Semiconductor's extensive product lineup ranges from IGBTs and power MOSFETs to gate drivers, op amps, optocouplers, and power modules, including advanced silicon carbide and wide bandgap ecosystems, as well as complete reference designs, field application support, and online design-aided resources and tools, all of which can help engineers address the increasing energy efficiency, power density, and performance requirements of applications such as solar energy, industrial drives, electric vehicle charging piles, and servers, and promote innovation.