The new 3rd generation 650 V SiC Schottky diode improves the energy efficiency and reliability of switching power supply designs

     Vishay Intertechnology has announced the launch of 17 new 3rd generation 650 V silicon Carbide (SiC) Schottky diodes. The hybrid PIN Schottky (MPS) design of the Vishay Semiconductors device provides high surge current protection and low forward voltage drop, capacitive charge and reverse leakage current, helping to improve the energy efficiency and reliability of switching power supply designs.

     The new generation of SiC diodes includes 4A TO 40A devices in To-22oAC 2L and To-247AD 3L plug-in packages and D2PAK 2L (TO-263AB 2L) surface-mount packages. As a result of the MPS architecture, the forward voltage drop of the device is 0.3V lower than the previous generation solution, and the forward voltage drop times the capacitive charge, namely the power energy efficiency important value factor (FOM), is 17% lower than the previous generation solution.

     Typical reverse leakage current of diodes is 30% lower at room temperature and 70% lower at high temperature compared to close competitor solutions. Therefore, the on-off loss is reduced, ensuring high energy efficiency during light and no-load periods of the system. Unlike ultrafast recovery diodes, third generation devices have little recovery trailing, allowing for further efficiency gains.

     Compared with silicon diodes with similar breakdown voltage, SiC diode has high thermal conductivity, low reverse current and short reverse recovery time. Diode reverse recovery time is almost unaffected by temperature changes, and can work at +175 °C without energy efficiency changes due to switching losses.

     Typical device applications include AC/DC power factor correction (PFC) and DC/DC UHF output rectification in FBPS and LLC converters for power generation and exploration applications. The device is highly reliable, RoHs-compliant, halogen-free, and has passed 2000 hours of high temperature reverse bias (HTRB) testing and 2000 thermal cycle temperature cycles, twice the test time and number of cycles specified in the AEC-Q101.