Microchip

[Music] 0:16 [Music] 0:24 welcome to coffee break I'm your host 0:26 Dana Curtis and this is episode 4 of 0:29 season 15 here at coffee break we invite 0:32 you to join us as we dive into the 0:34 fascinating world of all things 0:35 microchip technology and about the time 0:37 it takes to enjoy a fresh cup of coffee 0:40 for those of you joining us for the 0:41 first time coffee break is a live 0:42 broadcast so let's take it over to 0:44 Aliyah fot for some housekeeping items 0:46 Aaliyah what do you got for us thanks 0:49 Dana and hello everybody thank you for 0:51 joining us today we are currently live 0:53 on YouTube Facebook and Linkedin and we 0:55 invite you to participate in today's 0:57 episode by leaving your questions and 0:58 comments in the chat or you can email us 1:01 at livestream microchip.com after this 1:03 episode if you're watching us on YouTube 1:05 today make sure to subscribe to our 1:07 Channel and click the Bell so you know 1:08 when we're live and when our next 1:10 episode is if you're watching us on 1:11 LinkedIn make sure to subscribe to the 1:13 event so you can get all the information 1:15 related to this episode back to you Dana 1:18 thanks Aliyah today we have a very 1:20 special guest joining us Doug Anderson 1:22 is a senior business development manager 1:23 here at microchip 1:25 technology joining us on coffee break to 1:27 talk about how you can pick your power 1:30 here at microchip welcome Doug yeah 1:32 thank you D let's start with the obvious 1:34 question why do we need power well power 1:38 is what brings technology to life 1:41 without power we can't really do 1:43 anything we can't have a sensor we don't 1:45 have control uh we don't have 1:47 communication but for me when it gets 1:50 interesting is when we're talking about 1:51 high power you know the power to charge 1:54 your electric vehicle uh to run your 1:57 industrial factories to keep the data 2:00 centers going that's when it starts to 2:02 get interesting to me that's the space 2:03 that I live in and microchip we have a 2:06 very broad portfolio of of Power 2:08 Products uh making it easy for our 2:11 customers to pick their power and design 2:13 things in right because we're going to 2:15 need more power as we evolve with our 2:17 Electronics absolutely yeah every 2:19 everything is asking for more power 2:22 every 2:23 day so when we talk about the concept of 2:25 electrification of everything there's a 2:27 couple of trends that we see out in the 2:29 marketplace right industrial data 2:31 centers as you mentioned uh e-mobility 2:33 sustainability and then of course 2:34 Aerospace and defense but it goes deeper 2:36 than that right quite a bit deeper than 2:38 that and you know let's talk about a 2:41 couple of examples um Aviation the 2:45 electrification of Aviation is really 2:47 taking off quite literally um for 2:50 example you know here in Phoenix uh we 2:52 have companies that are using drones to 2:54 actually make deliveries um EV toll 2:58 which is electric vehicle electric 3:00 vertical takeoff and Landing vehicles uh 3:03 which you kind of the taxi of the future 3:05 yeah so we got it down there on the 3:07 lower right and uh and then even 3:09 passenger planes are starting to move 3:11 towards electrification now of course 3:14 that requires very high power robustness 3:17 lightweight um and so we have solutions 3:20 for all of that uh another example is in 3:23 Maritime um there's a lot of movement 3:25 towards electrifying ships fairies um a 3:29 lot of different things even ships that 3:30 are in at at dock they're wanting to get 3:33 them off of running their diesel 3:35 generators and getting them plugged in 3:37 uh a unique example that we heard of 3:39 recently is the electrification of 3:42 tugboats and you know electric motors 3:45 one of the nice things about them is 3:46 they have pretty much instantaneous high 3:48 torque right and if you're a tugboat 3:50 needing to push around a big shiply what 3:51 you need that's exactly what you need 3:53 and not only that it it lowers emissions 3:56 it makes it quieter uh it really fills 3:58 that Niche and as you can see from the 4:00 slide it it's all over the place I mean 4:03 there's it it's literally everywhere 4:06 yeah so it's easier to think about small 4:07 things like key fobs or even drones or 4:09 kind of small format but now we're 4:10 getting into really big thing so you're 4:12 talking about mass human transport 4:14 you're talking about boats I see heavy 4:15 duty Vehicles there with the tractor 4:17 we're really talking about big Power now 4:19 big things yeah uh and not just tractors 4:21 but you know mining vehicles and things 4:23 that are just gigantic Earth Ms Earth 4:25 movers all kinds all right so when we 4:27 say pick your power what are we talking 4:29 about there 4:30 what we're really talking about is 4:31 choice you know how do you match the 4:34 technology to your specific application 4:36 needs and you know what we're showing 4:38 here across this it's showing the 4:40 switching frequency but it's also 4:42 showing a variety of Technologies and if 4:45 we start at the right with silicon 4:47 standard silicon uh that has a role and 4:50 as you move over you get hybrid between 4:53 silicon and silicon carbide silicon 4:55 carbide and then you move into RF and 4:57 microwave um and it really just kind of 5:00 depends on what your application needs 5:04 and you know what we try to do is work 5:06 with our clients to um approach each 5:10 design objectively and recommend the 5:12 right technology for their application 5:14 we have a very large range of options 5:16 very large range of options that's right 5:18 and that leads us to implementation now 5:21 that's right and you know this Center 5:24 you know if you look at it it's it's how 5:25 are we delivering that to you is it in a 5:28 die is it in a discret part is it in a 5:31 module and really what we have is a 5:34 variety of different options here so we 5:36 can meet our customers where they are 5:38 right uh so for example if you're 5:41 designing a 5:43 pacemaker volume how much space the 5:45 circuitry takes up plays a big role and 5:49 we're working with several clients and 5:51 they're using silicon carbide because it 5:53 takes up a smaller volume which means 5:56 they can have a bigger battery right 5:58 which then means they they don't have to 6:00 go in and replace that pacemaker for an 6:02 additional three or four years and as 6:04 you can imagine that's quite an invasive 6:06 surgery and and so they would like to 6:09 extend that out as as much as possible 6:11 so that that's one option now at the 6:13 other end of that Spectrum where we're 6:14 showing the high the Hybrid Power drives 6:17 this is a complete solution this is 6:19 extremely high power we're building 6:21 everything into one thing to make it 6:23 much easier for our clients to take that 6:25 and drop it into their system uh so they 6:27 can focus on on what's important to them 6:30 and and we can kind of take off some of 6:31 the power burden yeah and I see their 6:33 ultra low inductance which we'll talk 6:35 about later yeah absolutely and then we 6:37 get into performance factors that's 6:39 right and you know if we look starting 6:41 at the origin there you know we I shows 6:44 standard there's industrial Automotive 6:47 Aviation defense space these are the 6:49 grades these are the different types of 6:50 grades each one of those grades has a 6:53 different requirement for robustness um 6:56 a different requirement for 6:58 qualifications 6:59 ISO standards and ISO standards uh 7:02 rugged you know ruggedness reliability 7:05 each one of those as you can imagine if 7:06 you got something in space it's not that 7:08 easy to send somebody mechanic that's 7:10 right that's talk about that a lot so 7:12 we're really uniquely positioned to go 7:15 from standard consumer grade all the way 7:17 to space grade and uh uh that's a really 7:20 unique position in the market now going 7:22 down that blue line you know moving from 7:24 a standard part you then can go into a 7:27 derivative um and mostly this is we're 7:29 talking about modules um where we'll 7:32 take a standard module and we can tweak 7:34 it for what you need um based on 7:38 customer speci based on customer specs 7:40 exactly um and then we can also do full 7:42 custom you know if if what we have in 7:44 our portfolio doesn't meet your needs we 7:47 can do full custom and uh again we're 7:49 really uniquely positioned in the market 7:52 that we can move through that very 7:53 quickly so and you know all of this the 7:57 one nice thing is all of this comes from 7:58 one supplier MH and it gives you you 8:01 know our our customers the flexibility 8:03 that they need to pick their power right 8:06 okay so this is from the component side 8:07 but what if we have a a need based where 8:10 they don't necessarily know what they 8:11 want yeah that's that's a great question 8:12 and and this is you know a similar a 8:15 different way of looking at the pick 8:16 your power and what we're showing here 8:18 is we've got three axis here we've got 8:20 frequency which we had on the last one 8:23 we also have device operating current 8:25 and power output and so if you have a 8:27 good idea of what your overall design 8:32 requires with regards to those three 8:34 those three then you can kind of see 8:36 where from a technology side of things 8:38 it it fits and again you know one of the 8:41 things that we want to make sure is that 8:43 as our customers are doing their designs 8:44 that they don't either overdesign or 8:46 underd design their their product you 8:48 know overdesigning leads to higher costs 8:50 underd designing leads to failures and 8:52 so we want to make sure that uh that 8:54 they understand where they fit on this 8:56 and and we're more than happy to help 8:58 folks make those we have a range there 9:00 between kerz kilowatts and and yeah so 9:03 absolutely why don't we talk about one 9:05 of the things that really matters in 9:06 power management which is thermal 9:07 management Now power generates a lot of 9:09 heat right it does you know and and 9:11 that's one of the most important aspects 9:13 of power system design is what are you 9:16 doing with thermals um and and really 9:19 what it is is as you're generating power 9:23 because it's not 100% efficient as you 9:25 said it did generates heat and heat can 9:27 impact performance and reliability over 9:29 time and so one of the things we're 9:31 always looking at is how do we get that 9:33 heat out of the system and when you're 9:35 talking about systems that are 9:37 generating kilowatts or even up to 9:40 megawatts then the heat that you're 9:41 generating it gets fairly significant 9:44 and so you have to understand and manage 9:46 the thermal Pathways you have to 9:49 understand how to choose the right 9:50 packaging and mounting the right heat 9:52 sinks all of this becomes very critical 9:55 and you know what we're showing here on 9:57 this slide is our power service Mount 9:59 topside cooled uh package and in psmt 10:03 for short it's quite a heat sink on 10:04 there it's quite a heat sink on there 10:05 and and what you'll notice is most 10:08 surface mount packages have the heat 10:10 sink on the bottom and so when you mount 10:12 it onto a PCB uh most of them are going 10:15 through a Reflow process and so it's 10:18 just soldered to the board right the PCB 10:21 is not the greatest thermal conductor 10:23 out there and so one of the ways that we 10:25 can help to get that heat out is by 10:27 having the heat sink move or the the 10:29 thermal pad moved to the top then you 10:32 can mount a heat sink directly to it now 10:34 the board that we're showing on the left 10:35 actually shows a couple of those parts 10:37 mounted in the middle of that board it 10:39 shows those same Parts with a thermal 10:42 sheet installed and then the last one 10:44 shows it with the heat sink installed 10:46 now interestingly uh sometimes I mean 10:48 that's a really big heat sink and some 10:50 of the designs the parts will actually 10:53 be mounted right up against the housing 10:55 you know the housing of the of the 10:56 component that's being designed uh 10:58 sometimes it's air cooling sometimes 11:01 it's liquid cooling uh and so we work 11:03 with clients to figure out what is the 11:06 best for them flexibility is a big part 11:08 of that flexibility is a big part of it 11:10 okay so now we get back to that low 11:11 inductance we were talking about yeah 11:13 you know so when we're talking about you 11:16 know the what we just showed in the psmt 11:18 that's a discreet part um Power density 11:21 is a big topic and one of the best ways 11:24 to increase your power density or you 11:26 know watts per you cubic inch Cub ctim 11:30 is to move to a module um we take care 11:34 of a lot of the heavy lifting when it 11:35 comes to the design um and this is our 11:38 spli which is an ultra low inductance uh 11:42 design and you know as we're designing 11:45 these we're also keeping in mind just 11:47 what it means you know thermal 11:49 management and when we're doing the 11:51 design we start with the substrate and 11:54 we look at what is it that that we need 11:56 to do to effectively transfer heat from 11:59 the Dy through the substrate into the 12:01 base plate and we have a variety of uh 12:04 of different options that we use again 12:06 depending on on needs um and the 12:09 substrate in addition to Thermal 12:11 conductivity it also provides electrical 12:13 isolation which is another very 12:14 important part of that and then after 12:16 you've picked your substrate then you go 12:18 on and you pick your base plate now our 12:20 standard base plate material is copper 12:22 and this is really good for transferring 12:24 thermal out um where it can you know 12:28 slow down a little bit is uh the 12:31 coefficient of of thermal expansion is 12:33 actually pretty high on copper and what 12:35 that means is when it heats up it 12:37 expands you know so it moves and so if 12:39 you have an application where you're 12:41 going to be going through a lot of 12:42 different temperature Cycles hot cold 12:44 hot cold uh then that could lead to some 12:47 reliability issues expion contraction 12:49 and so in in in uh applications that 12:54 require that type of thermal cycling 12:56 then we would opt for the the alc Al 12:59 yeah because it doesn't it doesn't uh 13:01 deal with heat quite as well but it does 13:03 really well with with thermal expansion 13:05 and so you know see these are just some 13:07 of the examples of the design choices 13:09 that uh that we have to go getting back 13:11 to Choice yeah that's that's exactly 13:13 right and and by making those choices it 13:16 allows the power modules to operate at 13:18 higher levels at greater reliability and 13:21 be far more robust and so it really 13:25 gives the customers a a a shorter path 13:28 to to a full design while avoiding some 13:32 of the common thermal bottlenecks in a 13:34 design yeah now I see here we've got 13:36 something about uh parasitic resistance 13:38 can you touch on that yeah so parasitic 13:40 resistance and and parasitics in general 13:42 in modules are something that that we 13:45 have to deal with now in this particular 13:47 one we focused more on actually the 13:49 induction than the resistance um and the 13:51 reason for that is is as you're talking 13:53 about really high power and and fast 13:56 switching frequencies uh even Nano 13:59 henries of inductance can have an impact 14:01 uh an impact on the efficiency on Emi on 14:06 a lot of different things and so that's 14:08 where we focused on this but we are 14:09 always looking at um you know all of the 14:13 different um stray inductances and 14:15 different things like that okay uh with 14:18 that let's get over to Aaliyah for some 14:20 questions from the interwebs Ayah what 14:21 do we got awesome let's start with um 14:24 the first question how does the top side 14:27 cooled package compare to the bot side 14:29 cooled D2 pack from a thermal 14:32 performance perspective okay well both 14:35 of those packages are surface mount 14:37 packages uh which means that they're 14:38 suitable for high volume manufacturing 14:41 um the P the psmt has the uh the heat 14:46 sink on the top the D2 pack has it on 14:48 the bottom um and as we talked about 14:50 earlier uh you know PCB material is just 14:53 not the best material that there is for 14:54 for thermal for heat transfer um so by 14:59 having that the the psmt because it 15:02 performs better uh it improves both our 15:05 our continuous and pulse power cap 15:07 capacity uh we did some experiments 15:09 where using a uh a program called uh 15:13 inisis ice pack we did some simulations 15:15 between the two and at the same power 15:18 level at at 20 watts of power 15:21 dissipation uh the psmt runs about 35° 15:25 Centigrade cooler than the D2 pack 15:27 that's significant yeah so it's it's a 15:29 it's a pretty significant change there 15:31 okay awesome uh your next question is 15:35 the base plate options listed are copper 15:37 and ALC how do they compare good 15:40 question yeah that is a good question so 15:43 uh and again when we're looking at base 15:44 plates we're looking you know the two 15:46 main things that we look at we kind of 15:48 spoke about a little bit already are 15:49 thermal conductivity and and thermal 15:52 expansion and because with silicon 15:56 carbide in particular and some of the 15:58 higher fre quency devices because 16:00 they're switching so fast the better the 16:04 better that we can control that uh the 16:07 the switching losses uh then the better 16:10 the the the cheaper that you can design 16:14 your system so cost is a factor cost is 16:15 a big factor and one of the big factors 16:17 is because you're able to switch faster 16:19 you can use smaller magnetics and 16:21 magnetics can be quite expensive of 16:23 course they take up more room and so it 16:25 again that higher switching frequency 16:27 allows you to get to um higher power 16:30 densities uh a rule of thumb that uh 16:32 that we use is below 20 khz igbts is 16:36 probably the right way to go it's it's a 16:39 still very cost effective you know and 16:40 igbts are very well suited for high 16:43 current and mid to low frequency 16:45 applications um now when we talk about 16:48 conduction losses igbts work the best 16:51 when they're working at their full power 16:53 rating you know as you start to back off 16:55 you end up with a voltage drop a vce 16:57 voltage drop that's all always there 16:59 regardless of the load so you know 17:02 you're you're losing things you're 17:03 getting less efficiency at lighter loads 17:06 and and that's for the conduction losses 17:08 where mosfets are efficient across the 17:10 entire operating range and so if you 17:12 have a load you know an application 17:14 where the load is going to vary and and 17:15 if it's going to be running at low load 17:17 for a lot of the time uh you know 17:19 mosfets silicon carbide mosfets may be 17:22 where you want to go but again it's 17:24 really about picking the right device 17:26 for the job based on intended use right 17:28 based on intended use 17:29 and you you know again what our goal is 17:32 is to help guide our customers to the 17:35 ideal part for their for their 17:37 application 17:38 so perfect thank you yeah uh here is a 17:42 LinkedIn question for you what are key 17:45 considerations when deciding between 17:46 sick mosfets and 17:49 igbts so that was kind of what we talked 17:51 about in the last one it it it really it 17:54 really depends on the frequency the 17:57 loads 17:59 but igbts are more um they kind of have 18:03 more of a specific use right like 18:04 running them at a really really hard 18:06 rate really really hard rate um you know 18:09 silicon igbts can actually go up to a 18:11 much higher voltage as well we're 18:13 talking tens of kilovolts uh where 18:15 silicon carbide right now will get to 18:17 those voltages eventually but 18:19 commercially about 3.3 kilovolts is is 18:22 where it's at um but yeah it really kind 18:24 of goes back to what is the application 18:27 signature and what does it fit in and 18:30 are you switching really high frequency 18:32 because if you are then you're you're 18:34 going to want to lean towards silicon 18:36 carbide if you're switching below 20 KZ 18:38 you're going to lean more to igbts um if 18:41 you're doing hard switching you're going 18:42 to probably want to lean towards silicon 18:44 carbide if you're doing zero volt 18:46 switching then igbts are a little better 18:49 suited so again really it we kind of 18:52 have to look at the mission profile yeah 18:54 there is crossover but there are 18:55 specific areas where one better the 18:57 other absolutely 19:00 awesome thank you um here's another 19:02 question for you uh from LinkedIn what 19:05 is hybrid igbt and how does it differ 19:07 from a regular igbt hybrid yeah that's a 19:10 really good question and so a regular in 19:14 quotes igbt is a silicon igbt paired 19:18 with a silicon free willing diode so in 19:20 this traditional setup it it trades off 19:23 there are trades off in terms of speed 19:25 speed and losses and so a hybrid igbt 19:28 keeps the Silicon igbt but then changes 19:31 it out to a silicon carbide diode and 19:34 they put it into the same package and so 19:36 by doing that you reduce your reverse 19:39 recovery loss you increase efficiency 19:42 and this is a big deal during switching 19:44 especially during if you're in a hard 19:46 switching application so again it it 19:49 really all comes back to being able to 19:51 pick the right thing for the right uh 19:53 but right part but we have a solution we 19:55 have both yeah we have a solution for 19:56 both 19:59 great thank you um I can do one more 20:01 question um why would I choose an ultr 20:04 low inductance module okay like the sp6 20:07 LI so when you're working with fast 20:10 switching devices especially silicon 20:12 carbide mosfets the parasitic inductance 20:15 becomes a Major Performance limiter and 20:18 so our goal when we designed this was to 20:20 get the inductance as low as possible so 20:24 you know with as few as you know a few 20:27 as little as a few 20:29 uh Nano henries of stray inductance it 20:32 can have an impact on it and so when we 20:34 do the layout of the modules we look at 20:37 everything to make sure that we can 20:39 minimize that because by minimizing that 20:41 we minimize switching losses Emi issues 20:45 H we increased robustness it makes it 20:48 you know eliminates failures over time 20:50 and so you're minimizing the loop 20:53 inductance within the module uh outside 20:56 of the module you still have to you know 20:57 be concerned about how you're designing 20:59 your board and everything else but this 21:01 allows the customers to really take full 21:04 advantage of what silica carbide has to 21:06 offer when reliability is key when 21:08 reliability yeah again it's higher 21:10 higher uh efficiency higher switching 21:12 frequencies and better thermal 21:14 performance by having that low 21:16 inductance good questions awesome thank 21:19 you Doug um those are all the questions 21:21 I have for you today and for the 21:22 audience out there if you have 21:23 additional questions or comments please 21:25 email us at livestream microchip.com 21:28 and don't forget to follow us on 21:29 LinkedIn And subscribe to our YouTube 21:31 channel back to you 21:33 Dana thanks Aaliyah that's all the time 21:36 we have for today special thanks to Doug 21:38 for sharing his knowledge and passion 21:39 with us today if you'd like more coffee 21:42 break head over to microchip.com for/ 21:45 coffee break and click on the Subscribe 21:47 button to get updates for all things 21:48 coffee break you can also see upcoming 21:50 episodes for season 15 and of course be 21:53 sure to join us next time on Coffee 21:55 Break as we explore unique qpl 25 amp 21:58 our relays for Harsh 22:01 environments that's going to be a good 22:03 one until then stay curious stay 22:07 creative stay 22:16 caffeinated you guys are good clear