Starkville , MS , March 10, 2010 - SemiSouth today announced that a new gate reference design is available for its energy-efficient SiC FET, which is a normally-off 63 mΩ, 1200 V, JFET consuming 7-to-10 times less switching energy than the insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) typically used in ac distribution networks.

SemiSouth SGDR600P1 reference gate driver (above) for its 1200 V, 63 mΩ, normally-off SiC JFET is compact, cost effective, and easyto use.

 

The peak gate current of the driver is +6 A / - 3 A, and is extremely helpful to customers who are designing in or ramping new designs using SemiSouth’s SiC FET since full schematics and bill of materials is provided in the datasheet.  “This new reference design allows our customers to add a standard gate driver with a bill of materials cost that is extremely low, since we are using all standard, off the shelf commercial components for the very compact (28 mm x 19 mm) reference driver board,” commented Dan Schwob , SemiSouth’s VP of Sales & Marketing.  Since releasing the SiC FET in late 2008, SemiSouth has seen widespread adoption of this popular power transistor because of its advantages in energy efficiency, reliability, and cost relative to other SiC technologies.

According to Dr. Jeff Casady , CTO & VP of Business Development, “The SGDR600P1 is an opto-isolated, two-stage driver, used for high-speed, hard-switching of our normally-off 1200 V JFET, which enables customers to quickly and easily obtain record low switching (and total) losses at frequencies up to 250 kHz.”  

 

SiC is an emerging semiconductor technology enabling energy efficient operation of power conversion and power management in telecom power supplies, inverters in solar and high-frequency welding, future automotive electric vehicle platforms, and many other products.  The true promise of SiC is its ability to make power supplies and power inverters up to 50-75% more energy efficient, operate at up to four to eight times higher frequency, and as a result run cooler and be physically much smaller in size. As an example, SiC power JFETs are expected to increase the 'fuel' efficiency of hybrid electric vehicles and help make them more affordable for consumers.

About SemiSouth Laboratories, Inc.

SemiSouth, a privately owned corporation with offices in Starkville , Mississippi , focuses on SiC power devices and electronics.  It was formed in 2000, and has sold products globally through direct sales or distributors since 2005.  It introduced the world’s first commercial, cost-effective normally-off SiC JFET in 2008, which have enabled world-record energy efficiencies for its customer’s products.  More information can be obtained from its web site (www.semisouth.com).

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