[Editor's Note] The development of AI and IoT is making our lives more convenient. Cutting-edge technologies are being applied to smart homes and their kitchens, bringing us closer to a life of abundance realized through smart kitchens. In modern kitchens, the use of induction has increased to replace gas ranges that use fire due to their dangerous nature. Our magazine met with Song Hyun-soo, Manager of Infineon Korea, a global semiconductor solutions company, to learn about why induction is becoming an essential home appliance and Infineon's unique induction heating (IH) solution.


■ Why induction is preferred in smart kitchens

Electric ranges are cooking appliances that generate heat with electricity rather than gas, and are classified into hot plates, highlights, and induction depending on the heating element.

Electric ranges are safer than gas ranges because there are no gas leaks. Also, because it does not consume oxygen, there is no risk of oxygen deficiency even when used in a closed space, unless the food burns, and there is no risk of carbon monoxide due to incomplete combustion.

In addition, electric ranges are easy to clean because you only need to lightly wipe the surface, so if food or oil gets splattered, it is easy to clean. In addition, compared to gas ranges that cause extreme heat in the summer, the heat generated from electric ranges is not released in other directions.

The reason why induction is preferred among electric ranges is because, rather than transferring heat to the container, the coil installed inside directly heats the container with an electromagnetic field.

Because it does not heat the top, it is stable, non-stick and easy to clean, and induction can raise the temperature of water to the boiling point the fastest.

While gas ranges have a thermal efficiency of about 45% and high-heat ranges have a thermal efficiency of about 65%, induction ranges have a high efficiency of about 90%.

■ What is the principle applied to induction heating products?

Induction heating is a heating method that uses the principle of electromagnetic induction.

A coil is placed just below the top plate on which the pot is placed, and a magnetic field is generated through a current of several tens of kHz in this coil.

This magnetic field causes an eddy current to flow through the bottom of the iron or stainless steel pot, and heat is generated through electrical resistance, heating the metal bottom of the pot. This phenomenon is called 'induction heating'.

■ Please introduce Infineon IH solutions.

Infineon's solutions suitable for induction ranges include the following products: Solutions 1 and 2 will be discussed in detail in the e4ds webinar on Tuesday, July 5th.

1. TRENCHSTOP™ 5 reverse conducting IGBT: Featuring a monolithic diode, it provides a perfect balance between power loss and EMI behavior for all half-bridge resonant switching applications up to 75 kHz, such as induction cooktops and inverter microwave ovens.

2. High reliability Infineon SOI (silicon-on-insulator) based level shift gate driver IC: 650V EiceDRIVER™ family with built-in bootstrap diode and excellent negative voltage tolerance.

*SOI (Silicon-on-Insulator): Unique, scalable high-voltage level shift technology with integrated bootstrap diode (BSD) to protect against negative transient voltage spikes and industry-leading robustness

3. EiceDRIVER™ 25V Single Channel Low Side Gate Driver for IGBT in SOT-223
4. PSoC™ 6 family of low-power and high-performance dual-core M4/M0+ microcontrollers
5. PSoC™ 4 family of M0 microcontrollers with advanced CAPSENSE™ and MagSense UI technology for touch
6. WICED™ Wi-Fi + Bluetooth® Combo, a single-chip solution for wireless LAN and Bluetooth
7. OPTIGA™ Trust products for hardware security for communication, data storage, and firmware updates to the cloud or other devices.

■ What are the brief differences in characteristics when applying IGBT elements and SiC MOSFETs?

The advantage of SiC MOSFETs is that they have lower switching loss than IGBTs and enable high-speed switching.

In terms of VI characteristics, IGBTs are not a problem in high-voltage, high-current applications, but when used widely from low power to high power, their efficiency in the low-power range is not good.

In comparison, SiC MOSFETs maintain low on-resistance over a wide range.

Induction heating has the advantage of reducing the coil size by using higher switching frequencies.

■ Lastly, please say a word to your readers.

In this webinar, we will demonstrate the actual operation of a half-bridge type induction heating evaluation board using a 650 V reverse conducting R6 IGBT suitable for induction heating and resonant switching applications and a gate driver using Infineon's SOI technology, and compare its characteristics with those of a SiC MOSFET.

I hope this will be helpful to those of you designing induction heating.

thank you