Starkille, MS, 2010 - SemiSouth today announced two new additions to its SiC JFET family.  The first is a normally-off, 1700 V, SiC JFET targeted at the auxiliary power supply market for motor drives.  Compared with the best Si MOSFET technology, this new SiC JFET, named the SJEP170R550 offers higher blocking voltage (1700 V), five times lower on-resistance (550 m-Ohm), and ~ ten times lower output capacitance (C_OSS of 20 pF) and gate charge (Q_G of 10 nC).

SemiSouth’s normally-off, easy to use, 1700 V SiC JFET offers higher blocking voltage, five times lower on-resistance, and ~ ten times lower output capacitance and gate charge than competing Si MOSFET’s for the auxiliary power supply for drives market.

“This new 1700 V, normally-off JFET offers the designer additional advantages compared to Si, including higher input voltages, better efficiency, including a significant double-digit efficiency improvement at high input voltages,” commented Dan Schwob, SemiSouth’s VP of Sales & Marketing.  Customers looking for energy efficient solutions for auxiliary SMPS have expressed great early enthusiasm for this product.  
The second product to be announced is a normally-on version of the popular, 1200 V, normally-off SiC JFET.  According to Dr. Jeff Casady, CTO & VP of Business Development, “Some customers have asked for a normally-on version of our normally-off SiC JFET products due to their topologies.  This normally-on version is identical to the normally-off version; except that it has 15% lower R_DSON, two times higher saturation current, and requires no gate current in the conduction mode.”  The normally-on SiC JFET is the SJDP120R085, with R_DSON of 85 m-Ohm.

Both of the new product releases are available immediately in bare die form or TO-247 packages, and the full datasheets are available on the website.  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.  

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.

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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