news digest ♦ Power Electronics
to IC Insights. Steady growth, combined with emerging energy standards and increasing power consumption and conservation efforts, demand additional performance capabilities. As such, pressure has been placed on device manufacturers to rapidly design and characterise new power devices to provide more efficiency.
Power device characterisation requires measuring performance across an entire operating region, often at hundreds of amperes and thousands of volts. High-performance requirements have created the need for innovations in curve tracer technology -- tools that have long been an industry standard for power device characterisation, but that no longer meet today’s stringent and higher-power characterisation requirements.
The CT-3100/3200 Curve Tracers are designed specifically for measuring different types of high- power semiconductor devices such as SiC, GaN and/or IGBTs, super-junction MOSFETs, diodes and thyristors. Measurement productivity is enhanced by the built-in USB port and a LAN interface for remote control of the CT-3100/3200. Complementary to existing SMU-based instruments, the CT- 3100/3200 Curve Tracers provide fast, accurate characterisation up to 3,000 V, 400 A, 4,000 W peak power and support a leakage mode with cursor resolution of 1 pA.
When used in combination with Cascade Microtech’s Tesla probe system, design cycles can be significantly reduced from traditional package- level device characterisation methods that require high-power devices be cut from wafers, packaged and returned for test in custom fixtures. On-wafer characterisation methods reduce these lengthy measurement cycle times by eliminating the need for dicing and packaging steps. As a result, device developers can do more complete characterisations to improve quality and reduce time-to-yield.
“Integrated on-wafer measurement solutions for high-power device characterisation will greatly help customers to speed up their design cycle. No longer do they need to send the wafer for dicing and bonding in the package before devices can be tested accurately. Measurements can now be made at the wafer level,” said Misao Saito, president of Iwatsu Test Instruments Corporation. “We are happy to partner exclusively with Cascade Microtech, one of the world’s leading experts at wafer-level
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probing, to ensure our power device customers have accurate test information and advanced test capability, to reduce development time and cost.”
“We are pleased to now offer Iwatsu curve tracers which, when paired with our Tesla system, will deliver an-integrated measurement solution for power device characterisation not previously offered in the market,” said Michael Burger, president and CEO, Cascade Microtech. “Efficient on-wafer characterisation shortens the design cycle, improves product quality and provides our customers with faster time-to-market.”
National Semi reveals first 100V driver for e-mode GaN FETs
The highly-integrated gallium nitride half-bridge gate driver boosts power density and efficiency in high- voltage applications.
National Semiconductor has unveiled what it claims is the industry’s first 100V half-bridge gate driver optimised for use with enhancement-mode GaN power FETs in high-voltage power converters. National’s new LM5113 is a highly-integrated, high- side and low-side GaN FET driver that reduces component count by 75 % and shrinks printed circuit board (PCB) area by up to 85 % compared to discrete driver designs.
Designers of power bricks and communications infrastructure equipment require high power efficiency in the smallest form factor. Enhancement- mode GaN FETs enable new levels of efficiency and power density compared to standard MOSFETs due to their low on-resistance and gate charge
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