Nexperia launches industry leading automotive-qualified 1200 V silicon carbide MOSFETs in D2PAK-7 packaging

Nexperia announced a range of highly efficient and robust automotive qualified silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs with RDS(on) values of 30, 40 and 60 mΩ. These devices (NSF030120D7A0-Q, NSF040120D7A1-Q, NSF060120D7A0-Q), which deliver industry-leading figures-of-merit (FoM), were previously offered in industrial grade and have now been awarded AEC-Q101 certification. This makes them suitable for automotive applications like onboard chargers (OBC) and traction inverters in electric vehicles (EV) as well as for DC-DC converters, heating ventilation and air-conditioning systems (HVAC). These switches are housed in the increasingly popular surface mounted D2PAK-7 package which is more suitable for automated assembly operations than through-hole devices.

RDS(on) is a critical performance parameter for SiC MOSFETs as it impacts conduction losses. However, concentrating on the nominal value, neglects the fact that it can increase by more than 100% as device operating temperatures rise, resulting in considerable rise of conduction losses. The temperature stability is even more critical when SMD package technologies are used compared to through-hole technology since devices are cooled through the PCB. Nexperia identified this as a limiting factor in the performance of many currently available SiC devices and leveraged the features of its innovative process technology to ensure that its new SiC MOSFETs offer industry-leading temperature stability, with the nominal value of RDS(on) increasing by only 38% over an operating temperature range from 25 °C to 175 °C. This feature enables customers to address higher output power in their applications achieved with a higher nominal 25°C rated RDS(on) from Nexperia compared to other vendors without sacrificing performance (more info).