greentechZONE Products for the week of March 14, 2011
Microsemi Corporation Says…
Comprehensive Solar Technology Portfolio
SmartFusion and IGLOO FPGAs provide flexibility; maximize efficiency and integration
Microsemi Corporation, has announced the immediate availability of its solar technology portfolio. Microsemi‘s products for renewable energy applications include SmartFusion and IGLOO FPGAs; analog, mixed signal devices such as bypass diodes/switches, MOSFETs, FREDs and IGBTs; DC-DC converters, and pulse width modulation (PWM) modules. The extensive portfolio enables the efficient, reliable and cost-sensitive implementation of the entire range of photovoltaic (PV) applications, including power harvesting, power management, power switching and power monitoring.
“As PV designers strive to keep up with the demands for continuous innovation while meeting the cost and performance pressures of the solar industry, access to the latest technology is vital,” said Russ Garcia, Microsemi SoC Group General Manager and Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “The availability of Microsemi’s comprehensive toolbox, from programmable devices and standard off-the-shelf parts to full custom ASICs, gives designers of photovoltaic applications a strategic partner that shares their technical and business goals.”
Microsemi has decades of experience in delivering innovative and highly reliable devices coupled with long product lifecycle availability. Continued product development focuses on flexibility, security and cost effectiveness, and provides the growing community of PV application designers with everything they need to quickly take their designs to market.
Solar Bypass Diodes for Power Harvesting
The LX2400 IDEAL Solar Bypass Device with Microsemi's patented CoolRUN technology provides a bypass path in PV module applications. With the industry's lowest forward voltage drop, resulting in negligible heat generation and temperature rise during operation, the LX2400 is best in class for reliability and robustness, in applications that require currents on the order of 10 amps or more through a module’s junction box.
At only 0.74 mm high, Microsemi's new Schottky Barrier PV bypass diodes are the thinnest in the world, allowing customers to integrate them under the glass, eliminating the need for junction boxes. Alternatively, the ultra thin dimensions can be used to shrink the size of the junction box. Designed specifically for solar panels, the SFDS series of 10 amp diodes are packaged with unique flexible copper leads that offer satellite-proven reliability.
Alongside the unique packages presented above, Microsemi also offers a wide range of Schottky bypass diodes in axial, surface mount and thru hole devices. The standard current range is 10 A to 18 A with voltages ranging from 20 V to 45 V, but the possibility to design and build custom devices up to 60 A and up to 200 V also exists.
SmartFusion and IGLOO FPGAs for Power Management and Control
Microsemi’s flash-based architecture utilized in SmartFusion mixed signal FPGAs and IGLOO low power FPGAs is ideal for helping inverter designers maximize efficiency and integration of board-level functionality into a smaller footprint. Functions and algorithms such as increased number of PWM state machines, Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) and Power Factor Correction (PFC) can be partitioned in the embedded 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 or within logic gates to suit the individual design requirements.
IGBTs, MOSFETs, FREDs and DC-DC Converters for Power Switching
The new 600 V CoolMOS C6 devices feature fifth-generation high voltage superjunction technology for extremely low conduction and switching losses, enabling the design of switching systems that offer new levels of efficiency and power density.
The new MOS 8 IGBT has been optimized for low frequency operation (10 KHz — 30 KHz), where conduction loss dominates overall system losses. The MOS 8 PT IGBT portfolio provides low conduction loss options at 2.0 V (600 VBR(CES)) and 2.5 V (900 VBR(CES)).
Microsemi also offers IGBTs, MOSFETs and FREDs in addition to other power semiconductor devices in a wide variety of power module electrical and mechanical configurations that facilitate the implementation of new and more efficient converter topologies such as three-level inverters, interleave PFC boost converters and matrix converters.
In addition, Microsemi's growing DC-to-DC product family supports up to 40 V input voltages across a wide range of current output, up to 40 amps. The family includes switching regulators with built-in power FETs as well as controllers that use external power FETs and can operate at frequencies up to 2 MHz.
FPGAs for Power Monitoring
SmartFusion intelligent mixed signal FPGAs include an analog front-end, embedded ARM Cortex-M3 processor and programmable logic fabric in a single IC platform. This flexibility gives designers the ability to develop low power, adaptable platforms for accurate real-time load data monitoring while addressing a variety of secure connectivity protocols.
EN-Genius Says…
At first glance, Microsemi’s acquisition of Actel last year seemed like an odd move. I mean, really, selling microcontrollers along Schottky diodes? And what do high performance power devices and FPGAs have in common? Surprisingly, the answer is “a lot.” While still in its early stages, the product portfolio announced here indicates that the Microsemi/Actel union will yield a broad range of complementary technologies and products that could give the green power community a new source of innovative products for their designs.
Since many of today’s power applications require some level of intelligence, adding Actel’s low-power programmable logic and an ARM Cortex microcontroller (available as a hard core or IP) gives Microsemi a nice vehicle for producing easy-to-customize solutions that make full use of their existing high performance analog and power technologies. This puts them on a relatively small list of companies (TI comes to mind) who have both excellent analog/power products and a credible line of digital products. Of course, Microsemi has neither TI’s broad span of processor options or its deep well of development tools but their somewhat limited digital palate appears more than enough to handle a surprisingly wide range of applications. This is especially true for low-cost, high-volume products like smart appliances, inverters, and smart meters which need relatively modest amounts of processing power.
In addition, Actel brought several low-cost programmable logic products to the party as well as its unique Fusion series of programmable analog products to the party, important capabilities that even the mighty TI cannot match. Since Microsemi also offers a smooth, (relatively) low-cost transition path between its programmable logic products and its ASIC fab line, it offers a great way for customers to get a product to market, make quick design tweaks and upgrades as needed, and finally cut production costs with an ASIC when volumes dictate.
Microsemi is smart to target these technologies as cost-effective ways to integrate many of the mixed-signal functions commonly found in solar power systems. They successfully applied a similar strategy using Fusion in ATCA/micro-TCA chassis management systems a few years ago (see my May 2008 review for details) and helped several companies unleash a very successful series of products. I’m counting on them to deliver similar results in applications like grid voltage and temperature sensing, maximum power point tracking, power factor correction, and other green power apps that need a healthy mix of analog I/O and multiple channels of PWM or other digital control signals.
I should also mention that Microsemi is one of the few companies that still has its own analog fab capabilities, something that’s allowed them to produce unique products like their ultra-thin SiC Schottky diodes and high-power MOSFETs and IGBTs for their traditional MIL/Aero customers. These same capabilities could help them take a lead in solar and wind power applications. Their low-loss Schottky Barrier PV bypass diodes, which are thin enough to be laminated into the solar panel itself, are one good example of the kinds of things I expect to see in the future.
Since many of Microsemi’s products are somewhat unique, one of their challenges will be getting designers to think beyond their normal methodologies. One of the best ways to do this is to make it easy for designers to get some hands-on experience with their technology with low-cost dev kits. While Microsemi’s offerings are not as diverse or feature-rich as some companies, they do offer several general-purpose evaluation boards and several others that support and application-specific reference design. The Fusion programmable mixed signal IC family has a pair of general-purpose eval kits, priced at $100 and $1000, respectively. Microsemi says that they currently offer several application-specific daughter boards which can be plugged into either kit and expect to be offering one for solar power applications some time in the near future. Also in the works is a full-up custom development kit that targets motor control applications which is expected to be announced a bit later in 2011.
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