Microsemi's photovoltaic overall solution focuses on the solar energy market

In recent days, the nuclear leakage accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan has continued to escalate, triggering global thinking about nuclear power safety. On March 16, the State Council's executive meeting decided to suspend the approval of nuclear power projects, including projects with preliminary work, before the nuclear safety plan is approved. At the same time, renewable clean energy such as solar energy and wind power has received more attention than ever before.

According to Mr. Xia Mingwei, Microsemi's Greater China Sales Manager, Microsemi has always been paying attention to the renewable energy market. As early as 2009, a Chinese customer adopted SmartFusion FPGA for the inverter design of its solar energy system. Compared with the inverter solution based on DSP technology, the use of FPGA consumes less power and can implement the software functions of the DSP solution on hardware, thereby improving product performance. In addition, Microsemi has decades of rich experience in providing innovative devices with high reliability and a long product supply period.

Recently, Microsemi announced that its solar technology product line is now available, including SmartFusion™ and IGLOO® FPGAs; analog and mixed-signal devices such as bypass diodes/switches, MOSFETs, FREDs and IGBTs; DC-DC converters, and pulse width modulation (PWM) modules. This rich product line enables efficient, reliable and cost-effective solutions in the entire range of photovoltaic (PV) applications, including power acquisition, power management, power switching and power monitoring.

Figure: Microsemi Solar Technology Product Series

• Solar bypass diodes are used to obtain electrical energy

The LX2400 IDEAL™ Solar Bypass Device uses Microsemi's patented CoolRUN™ technology to provide a bypass channel in photovoltaic module applications. The device has the industry's lowest forward voltage drop, which can achieve extremely low heating and temperature rise during operation. The LX2400 has best-in-class reliability and robustness for applications that require 10A or more current through the module junction box. Microsemi's new Schottky barrier photovoltaic bypass diode is the world's thinnest version with a thickness of only 0.74 mm, allowing customers to integrate it under the glass and eliminate the junction box. This ultra-thin bypass diode can also be used to reduce the size of the junction box. Designed specifically for solar panels, the SFDS series 10A diodes feature unique flexible copper pins and high reliability proven in satellite applications. In addition to the unique packages mentioned above, Microsemi also offers a wide range of Schottky bypass diodes in axial, surface and through-hole mounting formats with standard currents ranging from 10A to 18A and voltages ranging from 20V to 45V, as well as design and build options to provide custom devices with currents up to 60A and voltages up to 200V.

• SmartFusion and IGLOO FPGA for power management and control

Microsemi SmartFusion mixed-signal FPGAs and IGLOO low-power FPGAs use a flash-based architecture that is ideal for helping inverter designers maximize efficiency and integrate board-level functions in a smaller footprint. Functions and algorithms include a greater number of PWM state machines, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and power factor correction (PFC), which can be partitioned within the embedded 32-bit ARM® Cortex™-M3 or logic gates to suit a variety of design needs.

• IGBT, MOSFET, FRED and DC-DC converter for power monitoring