March 24, 2014, Seoul – STMicroelectronics (ST), a global semiconductor company serving customers across a wide range of electronic applications, announced a new family of advanced SiC power MOSFETs that can improve energy efficiency in power supply designs for applications such as solar inverters, electric vehicles, enterprise computing, and industrial motor drives.

ST is one of the leading companies producing these high-voltage silicon carbide (SiC) power MOSFETs, achieving an industry-leading operating temperature range of 200°C. Generally, SiC can reduce energy wasted by more than 50% compared to conventional silicon power transistors, and these MOSFET products can also reduce physical size while maintaining a high breakdown voltage. This technology is establishing itself as an essential element for continuously improving system energy efficiency, miniaturization, and cost.

In computer rooms and data centers, IT managers are most concerned about power and efficiency due to high energy costs. Replacing large power supplies with standard silicon switches equipped with SiC chips helps improve the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), a standard metric for measuring energy efficiency in data centers. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) claims that increasing energy-efficient networking systems and devices could save more than $500 million in costs by 2015 and offset 38 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

SiC MOSFETs are used in solar inverters to replace conventional high-voltage silicon IGBTs (Insulated Gate Bipolar Mode Transistors), converting the DC output generated by panels into high-voltage AC and transmitting it to main power supplies without the need for special driving circuits. Furthermore, because they operate at higher frequencies than IGBTs, other components of the power supply can be miniaturized during design, thereby reducing costs and size while increasing energy efficiency.

In electric vehicles, SiC is expected to significantly improve energy efficiency and reduce the size of powertrain systems. The US DRIVE Electrical & Electronics Technical Team, a collaborative body between the energy industry and the U.S. Department of Energy, requires that powertrain sizes be reduced by more than 20% while energy losses be cut by approximately half by 2020. The team's roadmap focuses on research and development utilizing wide band-gap semiconductor (SiC) technology to increase power converter efficiency and enable chips to withstand higher operating temperatures more safely. Compared to standard silicon and competing SiC MOSFETs, the improved temperature tolerance (200°C) of ST's new SiC chip will further help simplify the design of automotive cooling systems.

ST's new 1200V SiC power MOSFET, the SCT30N120, is currently being sampled and is scheduled to begin mass production by June 2014. Available in ST's exclusive HiP247 package, it features an industry-standard outline while being optimized for high thermal performance.