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Infineon Technologies AG is on schedule with the construction of the Smart Power Fab in Dresden and is initiating the final construction phase. During a visit, the Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, officially handed over the last outstanding building permit for the new fab issued by the State Directorate of Saxony.
The excavation of the building pit has now been completed. The shell and building construction are currently progressing on the concrete foundation, which is up to two meters thick. Infineon officially broke ground for the new plant in Dresden in May 2023. Manufacturing is scheduled to start in 2026. The production will focus on semiconductors that promote decarbonization and digitalization.
With a total investment of five billion euros, the company is making a significant contribution to the European Commission goal to increase the EU’s share of global semiconductor production to 20 percent by 2030. The semiconductors manufactured in Dresden will secure future value chains in key European industries. The products manufactured in the new production facility will be used in the automotive and renewable energy industries. The interaction of power semiconductors and analog/mixed-signal components enables particularly energy-efficient and intelligent system solutions – hence the name Smart Power Fab.
“The construction of the Smart Power Fab is a big win for Dresden, Saxony, Germany and Europe,” says Michael Kretschmer, Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony. “Infineon’s fourth production module in Dresden is another important building block in strengthening Europe’s resilience in the field of microelectronics. It is a further step towards achieving the European Commission’s goal of increasing Europe’s share of global chip production to 20 percent. Thanks to a thoughtful cooperation between the company, the Free State of Saxony, the local authorities, and the federal government, it has been possible to get the investment off the ground and to issue the relevant permits quickly. As a result, the semiconductors that we urgently need for the mobility and energy transition can be produced in the new fab starting in 2026.”
“We are making excellent progress with the construction of our state-of-the-art Smart Power Fab in Dresden. We are right on schedule also thanks to the excellent cooperation with the authorities,” says Dr. Rutger Wijburg, Member of the Management Board and Chief Operations Officer of Infineon. “With our strategic decision to continue investing in Dresden, we are securing the long-term future of the site and strengthening the manufacturing base for semiconductors in Europe.”
The dimensions of the construction site are impressive. On average, construction workers have removed around 8,000 tons of soil every day since the start of work. A total of 450,000 cubic meters of excavated soil has been produced, which corresponds to the volume of 180 Olympic swimming pools.
The soil is being temporarily stored in a specially prepared area near the Dresden Airport freeway junction. The 22-metre-deep pit not only compensates for the natural gradient, but also provides a firm foundation for the 150- to 190-centimetre-thick base plate, which is intended to reduce vibrations – from passing streetcars, for example – to a minimum. Even minimal vibrations can affect the sensitive semiconductor production.
In the next construction phase, the basement levels will be built, along with other levels. The clean room – the heart of the Smart Power Fab – is planned for the fourth level. Once completed, it will be at the exact same height as the site’s three existing production rooms. This will optimize an integrated production. The future construction phase of the project includes a total of ten tower cranes, some of them 80 meters high to support up to 1,200 construction workers who will be working on the site every day in multiple shifts.
The investment in Dresden is part of the company’s strategy to reach CO 2-neutrality by 2030. The Smart Power Fab sets new efficiency standards for the consumption of important resources such as energy and water. This has a positive impact on the carbon footprint of Infineon. Even today, Infineon’s products, which are used in solar and wind power plants, reduce 34 times the amount of CO 2 emitted during their production over their lifetime.
With the investment in the new plant, Infineon is creating an additional 1,000 jobs in the Saxon state capital. The company currently employs approximately 3,250 people in Dresden. The number of trainees has already been significantly increased with the new Fab. Subject to the European Commission’s state aid decision and the national grant procedure, the project is to be funded in accordance with the objectives of the European Chips Act. Infineon is aiming for public funding of around one billion euros.
Original – Infineon Technologies
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Infineon Technologies AG announced two new generations of high voltage (HV) and medium voltage (MV) CoolGaN TM devices which now enable customers to use Gallium Nitride (GaN) in voltage classes from 40 V to 700 V in a broader array of applications that help drive digitalization and decarbonization.
These two product families are manufactured on high performance 8-inch in-house foundry processes in Kulim (Malaysia) and Villach (Austria). With this, Infineon expands its CoolGaN advantages and capacity to ensure a robust supply chain in the GaN devices market, which is estimated to grow with an average annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46 percent over the next five years according to Yole Group.
“Today’s announcement builds nicely on our acquisition of GaN Systems last year and brings to market a whole new level of efficiency and performance for our customers,” said Adam White, Division President of Power & Sensor Systems at Infineon. “The new generations of our Infineon CoolGaN family in high and medium voltage demonstrate our product advantages and are manufactured entirely on 8 inch, demonstrating the fast scalability of GaN to larger wafer diameters. I am excited to see all of the disruptive applications our customers unleash with these new generations of GaN.”
The new 650 V G5 family addresses applications in consumer, data center, industrial and solar. These products are the next generation of GIT-based high voltage products from Infineon. The second new family manufactured on the 8-inch process is the medium voltage G3 devices which include CoolGaN Transistor voltage classes 60 V, 80 V, 100 V and 120 V; and 40 V bidirectional switch (BDS) devices. The medium voltage G3 products are targeted at motor drive, telecom, data center, solar and consumer applications.
The CoolGaN 650 V G5 will be available in Q4 2024 and the medium voltage CoolGaN G3 will be available in Q3 2024. Samples are available now.
Original – Infineon Technologies
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With the increasing power requirements of Artificial Intelligence (AI) processors, server power supplies (PSUs) must deliver more and more power without exceeding the defined dimensions of the server racks. This is driven by a surge in energy demand of high-level GPUs, which could consume 2 kW and more per chip by the end of the decade.
These needs, as well as the emergence of increasingly demanding applications and the associated specific customer requirements have prompted Infineon Technologies AG to extend the development of SiC MOSFETs to voltages below 650 V. The company is now launching the new CoolSiC™ MOSFET 400 V family, which is based on the second generation (G2) CoolSiC technology introduced earlier this year.
The new MOSFET portfolio was specially developed for use in the AC/DC stage of AI servers, complementing Infineon’s recently announced PSU roadmap. The devices are also ideal for solar and energy storage systems (ESS), inverter motor control, industrial and auxiliary power supplies (SMPS) as well as solid-state circuit breakers for residential buildings.
“Infineon offers an extensive portfolio of high-performance MOSFETs and GaN transistors to meet the demanding design and space requirements of AI server power supplies”, said Richard Kuncic, Head of the Power Systems Business Line at Infineon. “We are committed to supporting our customers with advanced products such as the CoolSiC MOSFETs 400 V G2 to drive highest energy efficiency in advanced AI applications.”
The new family features ultra-low conduction and switching losses when compared to existing 650 V SiC and Si MOSFETs. Implemented in a multi-level PFC, the AC/DC stage of the AI Server PSU can attain a power density of more than 100 W/in³ and is proven to reach 99.5 percent efficiency.
This is an efficiency improvement of 0.3 percentage points over solutions using 650 V SiC MOSFETs. In addition, the system solution for AI Server PSUs is completed by implementing CoolGaN™ transistors in the DC/DC stage. With this combination of high-performance MOSFETs and transistors, the power supply can deliver more than 8 kW with an increase in power density by a factor of more than 3 compared to current solutions.
The new MOSFET portfolio comprises a total of 10 products: five R DS(on) classes from 11 to 45 mΩ in Kelvin-source TOLL and D²PAK-7 packages with .XT package interconnect technology. The drain-source breakdown voltage of 400 V at T vj = 25°C. makes them ideal for use in 2- and 3-level converters and for synchronous rectification.
The components offer high robustness under harsh switching conditions and are 100 percent avalanche tested. The highly robust CoolSiC technology in combination with the .XT interconnect technology enables the devices to cope with power peaks and transients caused by sudden changes in the power requirements of the AI processor. Both the connection technology and a low and positive R DS(on) temperature coefficient enable excellent performance under operating conditions with higher junction temperatures.
Original – Infineon Technologies
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The influence of artificial intelligence (AI) is driving up the energy demand of data centers across the globe. This growing demand underscores the need for efficient and reliable energy supply for servers. Infineon Technologies AG opens a new chapter in the energy supply domain for AI systems and unveils a roadmap of energy efficient power supply units (PSU) specifically designed to address the current and future energy need of AI data centers.
By introducing unprecedented PSU performance classes, Infineon enables cloud data center and AI server operators to reduce their energy consumption for system cooling. The innovative PSUs reduce power consumption and CO 2 emissions, resulting in lower lifetime operating costs. The powerful PSUs are not only used in future data centers but can also replace existing power supply units in servers and increase efficiency.
In addition to the current PSUs with an output of 3 kW and 3.3 kW available today, the new 8 kW and 12 kW PSUs will contribute to further increasing energy efficiency in future AI data centers. With the 12 kW reference board, Infineon will offer the world’s first power supply unit that achieves this level of performance and supplies future data centers with power.
“At Infineon, we power AI. We are addressing a critical question of our era – how to efficiently meet the escalating energy demands of data centers,” says Adam White, Division President Power & Sensor Systems at Infineon. “It’s a development that was only possible by Infineon’s expertise in integrating the three semiconductor materials silicon (Si), silicon carbide (SiC), and gallium nitride (GaN) into a single module. Our PSU portfolio is therefore not only an example of Infineon’s innovative strength, which leads to first-class results in terms of performance, efficiency and reliability for data centers and the AI ecosystem. It also reinforces Infineon’s market leadership in power semiconductors.”
Infineon is responding to the requirements of data center operators for higher system efficiency and lower downtimes. The growth of server and data center applications has led to an increase in power requirements, necessitating the development of power supplies with higher power ratings from 800 W up to 5.5 kW and beyond. This increase is driven by the growing power requirements of Graphic Process Units (GPU) on which AI applications are computed.
High-level GPUs now require up to 1 kW per chip reaching 2 kW and beyond by the end of the decade. This will lead to higher overall energy demand for data centers. Depending on the scenario, data centers will account for up to seven percent of global electricity consumption by 2030; this is an order of magnitude comparable to India’s current electricity consumption.
Infineon’s new PSUs contribute to the efforts to limit the CO 2 footprint of AI data centers despite the rapidly growing energy requirements. This is made possible by a particularly high level of efficiency that minimizes power losses. Infineon’s new generation PSUs achieve an efficiency of 97.5 percent and meet the most stringent performance requirements. The new 8 kW PSU is capable of supporting AI racks with an output of up to 300 kW and more. Efficiency and power density is increased to 100 watts per in³ compared to 32 W/in³ in the available 3 kW PSU, providing further benefits for the system size and cost savings for operators.
From a technical perspective, this is made possible by the unique combination of the three semiconductor materials Si, SiC and GaN. These technologies contribute to the sustainability and reliability of AI server and data center systems. Innovative semiconductors based on wide-bandgap materials such as SiC and GaN are the key to a conscious and efficient use of energy to drive decarbonization.
The 8 kW Power Supply Unit will be available in Q1 2025. For more information about the PSU roadmap, please click here.
Infineon at the PCIM Europe 2024
PCIM Europe will take place in Nuremberg, Germany, from 11 to 13 June 2024. Infineon will present its products and solutions for decarbonization and digitalization in hall 7, booths #470 and #169. Company representatives will also be giving several presentations at the accompanying PCIM Conference and Forums, followed by discussions with the speakers. Information about Infineon’s PCIM 2024 show highlights is available at www.infineon.com/pcim.
Original – Infineon Technologies
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Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation held a ceremony to mark the completion of a new 300-millimeter wafer fabrication facility for power semiconductors and an office building at Kaga Toshiba Electronics Corporation in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, one of Toshiba’s key group companies. The completion of construction is a major milestone for Phase 1 of Toshiba’s multi-year investment program.
Toshiba will now proceed with equipment installation, toward starting mass production in the second half of fiscal year 2024. Once Phase 1 reaches full-scale operation, Toshiba’s production capacity for power semiconductors, mainly MOSFETs and IGBTs, will be 2.5 times that of fiscal 2021, when the investment plan was made. Decisions on the construction and start of operation of Phase 2 will reflect market trends.
The new manufacturing building follows and will make a major contribution to Toshiba’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP): it has a seismic isolation structure that absorbs earthquake shock and redundant power sources. Energy from renewable source and solar panels on the roof of the building (onsite PPA model) will allow the facility to meet 100% of its power requirement with renewable energy.
Product quality and production efficiency will be boosted by the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Toshiba expects to receive a grant from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan to subsidize its investment in part of the manufacturing equipment.Power semiconductors play a crucial role in electricity supply and control, and are essential devices for energy efficiency in all electrical equipment. With the continuing electrification of automobiles and the automation of industrial machinery, they are expected to see continued robust demand growth. Toshiba started power semiconductor production on a new 300-millimeter wafer line in the second half of fiscal 2022 at Kaga Toshiba Electronics’ existing facility. Going forward, the company will expand production with the new fab and further contribute to carbon neutrality.
Overview of Kaga Toshiba Electronics Corporation
Location: 1-1, Iwauchi-machi, Nomi-shi, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan
Established: December, 1984
President and Representative Director: Satoshi Aida
Employees: 1,150 (as of March 31, 2024)
Main Products: Discrete semiconductors (power semiconductors, small-signal devices and optoelectronic devices)
Web: Kaga Toshiba Electronics CorporationOriginal – Toshiba
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Soitec and Tokai Carbon, a comprehensive manufacturer of carbon and graphite products, have entered into a strategic partnership for the development and supply of polycrystalline silicon carbide substrates specifically designed for Soitec SmartSiC™ wafers.
Silicon carbide is a disruptive compound semiconductor and SmartSiC™ engineered substrates accelerate the adoption of silicon carbide for electric mobility, industrial and smart grid applications by delivering superior manufacturing and cost efficiencies with an improved environmental footprint.
Under this partnership, which will see Tokai Carbon supply 150mm and 200mm poly-SiC wafers to Soitec, the two companies are harnessing their advanced R&D capabilities to enhance the SmartSiC™ ecosystem. Tokai Carbon’s advanced technology and manufacturing capacity in polycrystalline silicon carbide (polySiC) combined with the right to use Soitec specifications for polySiC coarse wafers compliant with Soitec SmartSiC™ is expected to make a strategic contribution to the global ramp-up of SmartSiC™ wafer production.
Cyril Menon, Chief Operations Officer of Soitec, stated: “This partnership with Tokai marks yet another key step in the ramp-up of Soitec’s SmartSiC™ technology to address fast-growing markets such as electric mobility and industrial electrification. Tokai’s top quality SiC products and R&D capabilities, combined with Soitec’s innovative SmartSiC™ technology, can help to accelerate global adoption of electric mobility and other SiC technologies. This is an important milestone in terms of perception and value creation for the SmartSiC™ ecosystem.”
Hajime Nagasaka, CEO of Tokai Carbon, commented. “The polycrystalline SiC substrate to be supplied to Soitec is a strategic product in our solid SiC product series. We are pleased to see our long years of research and development come to fruition in this way, and we have high expectations for this product in the SiC semiconductor market, which is expected to expand significantly in the future. The partnership with Soitec is also very meaningful in terms of contributing to the realization of a sustainable society.”
Original – Soitec
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X-FAB and Soitec will begin work to offer Soitec’s SmartSiC™ wafers for the production of silicon carbide power devices at X-FAB’s plant in Lubbock, Texas.
This collaboration follows the successful completion of the assessment phase, during which silicon carbide (SiC) power devices were manufactured at X-FAB Texas on 150mm SmartSiC™ wafers. Soitec will offer X-FAB’s customers easy access to the SmartSiC™ substrate through a joint supply chain consignment model.
X-FAB is the pioneer and leader of the foundry model in the fast-growing SiC market. Silicon carbide (SiC) is a disruptive compound semiconductor material with intrinsic properties providing superior performance and efficiency over silicon in power applications.
SmartSiC™ is a proprietary Soitec technology based on the company’s SmartCut™ process, in which a thin layer of a high-quality monocrystalline (mono-SiC) ‘donor’ wafer is split off and bonded to a low resistivity polycrystalline (poly-SiC) ‘handle’ wafer. The resulting substrate offers improved device performance and manufacturing yields. The process allows multiple re-uses of a single donor wafer, significantly reducing cost and related CO2 emissions.In this fast-growing market, Soitec is ramping production of SmartSiC™ substrates at its new plant of Bernin, near Grenoble (France). X-FAB is increasing production capacity for SiC devices at the Lubbock plant. The use of the SmartSiC™ substrate enables X-FAB’s customers to design smaller devices, resulting in efficiency improvements through an increased number of dies per wafer. The benefit of reduced CO2 emissions from the substrate manufacturing process will also contribute to X-FAB’s initiative to reduce its overall carbon footprint.
Sophie Le-Guyadec VP Procurement of X-FAB, states: “As the leading SiC foundry, we want to provide our customers the full range of opportunities to design innovative and robust SiC devices for electric vehicles, renewable power and industrial applications. To offer the most advanced silicon carbide processes and manufacturing capabilities, we jointly agreed to provide our customers easy access to Soitec’s innovative SmartSiC™ via a consignment model.”
Emmanuel Sabonnadiere, Soitec Executive Vice President Automotive and Industry comments: “Soitec’s SmartSiC substrates and X-FAB’s foundry services are a perfect fit to meet increasing demand for new SiC products. This cooperation is a significant milestone for the deployment of SmartSiC in the U.S. market and internationally, thanks to X-FAB’s global footprint.”Original – X-FAB
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Power Integrations announced the launch of the SCALE-iFlex™ XLT family of dual-channel plug-and-play gate drivers for operation of single LV100 (Mitsubishi), XHP™ 2 (Infineon), HPnC (Fuji Electric) and equivalent semiconductor modules up to 2300 V blocking voltage for wind, energy storage and solar renewable energy installations.
This single-board driver enables active thermal management of inverter modules for improved system utilization and reduces the bill-of-material count for increased reliability.
Thorsten Schmidt, product marketing manager at Power Integrations commented: “It’s a real challenge to build a single-board gate driver for these ‘new dual’ style IGBT modules. Our compact new SCALE-iFlex XLT gate drivers fit inside the outline of the module, allowing the drivers to be mounted on the module, which gives converter system designers a high degree of mechanical design freedom.”
SCALE-iFlex XLT dual-channel gate drivers feature Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC) data reporting – an isolated temperature measurement of the power module – which allows accurate thermal management of converter systems. This enables system designers to optimize thermal design and obtain a 25 to 30 percent converter power increase from the same hardware.
The isolated NTC readout also reduces hardware complexity, eliminating multiple cables, connectors and additional isolation barrier crossing circuits. The new gate drivers employ Power Integrations’ SCALE-2 chip set which minimizes component count, enhancing reliability. The gate driver board also protects the power switches in the event of a short-circuit.
Original – Power Integrations
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Nexperia announced that it is now offering its industry leading 1200 V silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs in D2PAK-7 surface mount device (SMD) packaging, with a choice of 30, 40, 60, and 80 mΩ RDSon values. This announcement follows on from Nexperia’s late-2023 release of two discrete SiC MOSFETs in 3 and 4-pin TO-247 packaging and is the latest offering in a series which will see its SiC MOSFET portfolio swiftly expand to include devices with RDSon values of 17, 30, 40, 60 and 80 mΩ in flexible package options.
With the release of the NSF0xx120D7A0, Nexperia is addressing the growing market demand for high performance SiC switches in SMD packages like D2PAK-7, which is becoming increasingly popular in various industrial applications including electric vehicle (EV) charging (charge pile, offboard charging), uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and inverters for solar and energy storage systems (ESS).
It is also further testimony to Nexperia’s successful strategic partnership with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO), which has seen the two companies join forces to push the energy efficiency and electrical performance of SiC wide bandgap semiconductors to the next level, while additionally future-proofing production capacity for this technology in response to ever growing market demand.
RDSon is a critical performance parameter for SiC MOSFETs because it impacts conduction power losses. However, many manufacturers concentrate on the nominal value, neglecting the fact that it can increase by more than 100% as device operating temperatures rise, resulting in considerable conduction losses.
Nexperia identified this as a limiting factor in the performance of many currently available SiC devices and leveraged the features of its innovative process technology to ensure that its new SiC MOSFETs offer industry-leading temperature stability, with the nominal value of RDSon increasing by only 38% over an operating temperature range from 25 °C to 175 °C.
Tightest threshold voltage, VGS(th) specification, allows these discrete MOSFETs to offer balanced current-carrying performance when connected in parallel. Furthermore, low body diode forward voltage (VSD) is a parameter which increases device robustness and efficiency, while also relaxing the dead-time requirement during freewheeling operation.
Original – Nexperia
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Qromis, Inc. brings a revolutionary, high performance substrate solution for large-diameter GaN epi and device wafers. Rather than solving incremental scale and performance challenges of conventional substrates for WBG semiconductors, QST™ (Qromis Substrate Technology) has been developed and validated as a disruptive solution, with cross-functional optimization.
In this approach, the key properties of substrate material such as stress, lattice mismatch, thermal stability and shape control are engineered independently for the best fit with GaN epitaxial and device layers, as well as with different device architectures and performance targets. QST™ materials layers are integrated together in the conventional semiconductor fab with a simple manufacturing flow.
The resulting large diameter substrates (6-inch, 8-inch, 12-inch or beyond) are capable of supporting from a few to tens of microns of high-quality GaN epitaxy, from which unique, high performance and low cost GaN device structures are fabricated.Qromis is designing reference devices for device manufacturers to demonstrate the benefits of the groundbreaking QST™ technology. These devices exploit key advantages of QST™ over other substrate solutions:
– High quality and stress-free GaN,
– Ability to deposit thick, bulk-like GaN epi layers on large diameter substrates,
– Low defectivity, eliminating a major limitation to performance and scalability.
With these distinct features, designers can now break free from the current technological limitations of GaN process technologies and develop advanced device architectures for lateral and vertical device designs of light emitters, switches, rectifiers, as well as monolithic and integrated circuits.Qromis, Inc., established in March 2015 and located in Silicon Valley, California, is a privately held fabless technology innovator focusing on energy efficient and high performance wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor materials and device solutions which dramatically reduce global energy use and consumption. The Company is poised to become one of the premier players in the rapidly growing, multi-billion dollar WBG industry with its disruptive and validated solutions in substrate and device technologies, which enable an unmatched cost, performance, and application scale. Markets served include power electronics, light emitting diodes (LEDs), advanced displays, and RF electronics, and other emerging high performance and energy efficient applications.
As a fabless company, Qromis is driving the commercialization of its unique solutions in conjunction with its foundry network. The Company and its foundry partner offer WBG device foundry services, as well as access to advanced and novel process technology platforms, for its customers and partners.To learn more about Qromis and its substrate technology, join the International Conference on Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology which takes place May 20-23, 2024 in Tucson, Arizona.
Original – Qromis
