Low-Side Switches

TEMPFET™: The era of the Infineon’s Smart Power Low Side switches began with the introduction of the TEMPFET®. TEMPFET® devices are temperature protected FET-switches. The TEMPFET Switches can be controlled as any discrete FET, but in addition they implement a temperature protection. Characteristic for TEMPFET™ devices is the temperature sensor. This sensor is mounted on top of a standard MOSFET. The temperature sensor has the behaviour of a thyristor. It fires at overtemperature. In the classic version of the TEMPFET®, the temperature sensor is connected already internally in-between gate and source of the MOSFET. In case of an overtemperature it simply shorts gate and source and hence switches the MOSFET off. Since this concept requires a serial gate resistor to protect the internal thyristor, the classic TEMPFET® devices are restricted to applications with slower switching times. With the Speed-TEMPFET® family the temperature sensor is externally available. This enables the user of a Speed TEMPFET® on the one hand side to define, how the Speed TEMPFET® should react at overtemperature, on the other hand it extends the application area for temperature protected FET switches towards fast-switching PWM applications. To ensure short circuit protection for classic TEMPEFT® devices, the maximum gate to source voltage has to be limited.

HITFET™: Ever increasing demand for highly integrated protected switches will continue to drive the use, acceptance and development of HITFET® (High-Integrated Temperature protected FET) long into the future. Fault detection and protection are safety features required and widely used today in numerous automotive and industrial applications. In particular for these high power applications where voltage transients or high inductance loads are present, circuit protection is critical. HITFET low-side switches are versatile power transistors ideally designed for automotive and industrial applications. Their built-in intelligence and protective features offer not only significant cost and PCB reduction, shorter time to market, but also improved performance & reliability over conventional, discrete solutions.