Infineon expands its 600V Power Switching Device Family; New RC-Drives Fast IGBTs Enable Up To 96% Energy Efficiency with High Switching Frequency While Reducing the Inverter Size and Cost

Neubiberg, Germany - May 17, 2011 - At PCIM Europe (May 17-19) in Nuremberg, Germany, Infineon Technologies (FSE: IFX / OTCQX: IFNNY) expands its family of Reverse Conducting (RC) 600V IGBT with two new switching power devices that achieve up to 96% efficiency in target applications. The new RC-Drives Fast devices allow design of energy efficient, electric-motor driven consumer appliances that use smaller components and thus have a lower overall cost compared to alternative systems.

Infineon’s portfolio of RC-D switching power devices – which integrate the company’s market leading TrenchSTOP™ IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) technology and a free-wheeling diode in a single die – offer low switching and conduction losses with reduced area requirements for the driver circuitry of permanent magnet motors. The new RC-Drives Fast devices offer higher switching frequencies to achieve greater efficiency with only small effect on inverter losses. This leads to increased energy savings, lower requirements for thermal management and reduced EMI (electromagnetic interference) in a range of applications, such as domestic air conditioner fans, dishwasher motors and other home appliance motor drives operating at 4 to 30kHz switching frequency.

“The introduction of a monolithic IGBT and diode allows our customers to meet consumer demands for efficiency while reducing inverter cost by up to 10 percent and shrinking board space requirements for IGBTs by up to 50 percent,” said Roland Stele, Business Segment Manager IGBT at Infineon Technologies. “With the addition of fast switching frequency variants, manufacturers can improve efficiency of motor drive supplies by a further 20 percent and once again lower costs as they incorporate RC-Drives Fast IGBTs into fan motors, compressors and other inverter-based systems.”

For consumer drives this series enables high efficient designs of inverters that feature operations above 16kHz to reduce the audible noise to an absolutely silent level. Additionally, in small motor drives using sensor-less FOC (Field Oriented Control), the higher switching frequency allows an increased sampling rate to achieve more accurate dynamic control (torque and speed) of the BLDC motor.

In comparison testing on a 200W system demo board, the new RC-DF devices showed switching frequency improvements in the 1-2 percent range, while thermal losses (heat) were reduced by an average of 20 percent compared to boards laid out with RC-Drives devices. The new device family ideally complements the overall portfolio, which is optimized to minimize the conduction losses that have the biggest impact on efficiency in motors operating at lower switching frequencies.

Infineon is introducing two 600V IGBT RC-Drives Fast devices: The first is a 2.5A device supporting maximum inverter output power of 100W and the second is a 4A device supporting up to 200W output. As with all RC-D family members, they are in DPAK (TO-252) packages with dimensions of 2.30mm x 6.50mm x 7.22mm. Other IGBTs available for this application segment only offer larger D ²PAK (TO-263) or TO-220 packages with dimensions of 9mm x 10mm x 4.5mm.

Availability

Engineering samples of the 600V RC-Drives Fast IGBTs are now available, with volume production scheduled to begin this summer.

Infineon Technologies presents the new the 600V RC-Drives Fast IGBTs at the PCIM Europe 2011 in Nuremberg, Germany, in Hall 12 at Booth 404.

Further information about the 600V IGBT RC-Drives Fast drives is available at www.infineon.com/rcdf

Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions addressing three central challenges to modern society: energy efficiency, mobility and security. In the 2010 fiscal year (ending September 30), the company reported sales of Euro 3.295 billion with approximately 26,650 ¹ employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX) and in the USA on the over-the-counter market OTCQX International Premier (ticker symbol: IFNNY).

¹The number of employees still includes the approximately 3,500 employees of the Wireless Solutions business sold to Intel Corporation.