Infineon Launches 30V MOSFETs Saving up to 50 Percent Boardspace Focus on High-Efficiency Power Conversion Applications

Munich/Germany and Long Beach/California, USA – November 4, 2003 – At the “PowerSystems World 2003” trade show, Infineon Technologies (FSE, NYSE: IFX) today announced the first members of a new power semiconductor family. They are available in a specially developed high-performance SuperSO8 package that saves up to 50 percent of the board space needed for system designs. Specifically designed for optimum performance in low-voltage power conversion and switching applications, the OptiMOS®2 30V N-channel MOSFET family provides considerably higher efficiencies than devices previously available for voltage converters used in notebooks, servers, telecommunications applications and PC motherboards. For example, in a buck converter topology, which is the most common of these applications, the efficiency increases by three percent, corresponding to a reduced thermal power dissipation of about 20 percent.

The general trend in DC/DC conversion is toward increased load currents at higher switching frequencies. Because power losses increase with the square of the load current and linearly with the switching frequency, this trend means that converter efficiency must be improved in order to meet thermal and space specifications. This can be achieved using Infineon’s new OptiMOS 2 30V technology in the SuperSO8 package.

The 30V technology offers, in the best-in-class member of the OptiMOS 2 family, a maximum on-state resistance (R _DS(on)) of 3.3 mΩ (milliohms) at a gate voltage of 4.5V, with an extremely low typical total gate charge (Q _g) of only 44 nC (nanocoulombs). This yields an excellent Figure of Merit (FOM = R _DS(on) x Q _g) of 145 mΩnC, which is about 20 percent lower than that of the closest competitor. Additionally, high avalanche ruggedness makes the technology very robust in inductive circuits.

The space-saving SuperSO8 package uses an innovative copper clip technology instead of classical bond wires for the connection of the chip. Compared to a conventional DPak package, this technique reduces the R _DS(on) contribution of the package by a factor of four and cuts down the parasitic source inductance that limits switching speed at high currents by a factor of 20. A further advantage of the SuperSO8 package is good thermal management due to its low thermal resistance (R _th). Exploiting the benefits of the new SuperSO8 package results in a reduction of switching losses of up to 50 percent.

“With the introduction of the 30V OptiMOS 2 family, Infineon helps its customers meet the power requirements of upcoming system designs based on new processor generations, while accommodating the evolving cost, board space and thermal management limits,” said Gerhard Wolf, Senior Manager Product Marketing, Power Management & Supply business unit at Infineon Technologies North America. “In supplying the power for processors with ever-increasing clock rates, DC/DC designers have to handle high current densities with very tight voltage limits. Infineon’s new OptiMOS 2 series meets these challenges and enables high-performance, cost-effective power supply solutions.”

In such DC/DC converter applications as notebooks, PC motherboards and voltage regulator modules for servers, the new OptiMOS 2 30V technology in the SuperSO8 package offers significantly increased efficiency. The combination of low gate charge and reduced parasitic inductance allows switching losses to be minimized at ultra-fast switching frequencies. For example, use of the new SuperSO8 products for the high-side and low-side switches in the typically used buck converter topology can reduce switching losses by as much as 50 percent compared to a configuration using standard DPak products. The reduced power dissipation is of essential help in meeting the severe thermal constraints of modern CPU power supplies, in particular in such space limited applications as notebook computers.

Availability and Pricing

Samples of the new OptiMOS 2 30V devices in SuperSO8 and standard SO8 packages are available now, with volume production to start by the end of November 2003. In quantities of 10,000, the price per unit is Euro 0.79 (US $0.91) for the SuperSO8 (BSC022N03S) device and Euro 0.42 (US $0.48) for the standard SO8 (BSO052N03S) device.

Information on the SuperSO8 package is available (effective from November 5 2003) at www.infineon.com/SuperSO8

Infineon is showing its new power semiconductors and SuperSO8 package in Booth #822 at the “PowerSystems World 2003” trade show November 4 - 6, 2003, in Long Beach, California, USA.

Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for the automotive and industrial sectors, for applications in the wired communications markets, secure mobile solutions as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In fiscal year 2002 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 5.21 billion with about 30,400 employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information is available at www.infineon.com.

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