ON Semiconductor Launches New High Power Totem Pole PFC Controller to Meet Challenging Energy Efficiency Standards

ON Semiconductor Launches New High Power Totem Pole PFC Controller to Meet Challenging Energy Efficiency Standards

Newest device reduces development time and costs, enabling faster delivery of solutions to market

March 22, 2022 - ON Semiconductor, a leader in smart power and smart sensing technology, has launched its latest mixed-signal controller dedicated to bridgeless totem pole power factor correction (TP PFC) topology. The target application of NCP1681 is ultra-high-density offline power supply. This new controller builds on the success of NCP1680 for designs up to 350 W, extending power capabilities to the kilowatt range.

In the past, TP PFC design required the use of an MCU, which increased the complexity of the design and required coding. Now with the NCP1681, a fully functional TP PFC solution can be implemented by adding only a few external components without coding, saving time, cost and space.

Commenting on the new product launch, Robert Tong, senior vice president and general manager of ON Semiconductor’s Compute and Cloud Division, said: “The new NCP1681 extends the benefits of codeless TP PFC design to higher powers. This enables our customers to continue to improve the energy efficiency of their designs while reducing design time and cost, enabling faster time to market.”

The NCP1681 can be configured to operate in fixed frequency continuous conduction mode (CCM) or in multi-mode , where the controller naturally transitions between CCM and critical conduction mode (CrM) to achieve optimal performance at various power levels.

The new NCP1681 high power TP PFC controller combines a proven control algorithm with novel features to provide a high performance and cost-effective TP PFC solution that can also meet challenging energy efficiency standards such as “80Plus” or “CoC Tier 2” which require high efficiency over a wide load range.

The new NCP1681 is suitable for higher power supplies in the 350 W to several kilowatt range, operates from a universal power input (90 - 265 Vac), and is widely used in applications including servers, high-performance computing, telecommunications, industrial and OLED TVs. At high voltage input, the NCP1681 TP PFC solution will achieve an efficiency of nearly 99%.

The NCP1681 will be demonstrated along with the award-winning low power (<300W) NCP1680 at APEC 2022 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. Demonstrations can be seen at ON Semiconductor’s booth (1124) from March 21 to March 23.

In addition to TP PFC controllers, ON Semiconductor also offers a variety of SiC MOSFETs and isolated gate drivers that can be used for the fast branches of the totem pole. SiC MOSFET devices have low on-resistance (RDS(on)) and compact chip size, ensuring low capacitance and gate charge (Qg), providing extremely high energy efficiency in a reduced system size, thereby achieving high power density. When the NCP1681 is used with the NCP51561 electrically isolated gate driver, a stable and reliable design can be achieved without sacrificing switching performance.