Enpirion, one of the major playersin the power module business, has introduced its new EN2300 12V DC-DC converter family. The devices supportan input voltage range of 4.5 to 14V and an output voltage range of 0.6 to 5V.
While muchof the excitement in the power conversion world centers on the more exotic widebandgap materials of GaN (gallium nitride) and SiC (silicon carbide), whichtout high switching frequencies and lowconduction losses, Enpirion achieves what it claims is the industry's highestfigure of merit (FOM = Gate Charge xOn-state Resistance in units of milli-ohm nano-coulombs) of 20, which is claimsis a 40% improvement over alternative LDMOS, 73% over VDMOS, and 33% betterthan high performance GaN.
The newprocess is 0.18u lateral DMOS (LDMOS). (Texas Instruments also uses a lateralDMOS process in its lower-voltage modules.)
Look forEnpirion's modules to continue to increase in their voltage range - LDMOS stillhas plenty of room to increase its blocking voltage, although it can't touchthe 600V+ blocking voltages of SiC.
Enpirionrefers to its modules as power system-on-chip (PwrSOC). It integrates the controller,power MOSFETs, high frequency input capacitors, compensation network, andinductor all in one IC-like package, controlling package layout and parasiticsand removing those headaches from the system designer. The EN2300 familydevices switch at 2MHz.
The EN2300devices footprints are from 4A at 190mm2 to 15A at 308mm
2. All the EN2300devices achieve up to 95% efficiency with a flattened efficiency profile from10% to 100% load. The devices are available now, with the EN2340QI at $3.56,EN2360QI at $4.41, EN2390QI at $6.60, EN23F0QI at $9.00 at volumes of 1k units.
