As automobiles move towards electronics, both conventional fuel vehicles and hybrid/pure electric vehicles (EVs) use more and more electronic parts, making the automotive application market flourish and bringing huge business opportunities to the electronics industry. This article will show you the development of the automotive application market and the solutions proposed by Nexperia.
Fast developing automotive electronics market with huge opportunities
In addition to moving towards electrification, automotive applications are gradually increasing safety, lighting, entertainment equipment and adopting more and more electronic systems. Common automotive electronic applications include ADAS radar sensor modules, airbag controllers, anti-lock braking systems, automatic HVAC BLDC motors, cooling fans, electronic fuel injection, electric power steering, adaptive LED headlights, on-board chargers (OBC), in-vehicle networks (CAN/LIN/FlexRay), multimedia/infotainment systems, touch screens, cameras, LED lighting, DC/DC converters, etc. The required electronic products and market opportunities are quite large.
In addition, the world today requires more energy-saving and efficient automobiles, and governments around the world have imposed reductions on Co2 emissions from automobiles to address climate change and maintain resources. Thus, the core is power transmission systems, whether combustion, hybrid, or full electrical, and innovative technologies and systems for powertrain systems, chassis, safety, lighting, and body electronics can also help improve overall vehicle efficiency to reduce fuel consumption, Co2 emissions, and costs. Today's automobiles are undergoing major changes, and manufacturers of automotive parts and components must improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their products in order to respond to changing market demands.
Nexperia produces a wide variety of products, including bipolar transistors, diodes, electrostatic discharge protection (ESD), transient voltage suppression (TVS) diodes, metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFET), and logic devices. For automotive industry applications, Nexperia consistently provides products with excellent functionality and performance and adopts appropriate packaging to help users win in a competitive market through “driving efficiency”.
Nexperia provides a wide range of specialized discrete devices, MOSFET devices and logic devices for the automotive industry. Products are fully qualified to AEC-Q100/Q101 standards. In combination with traditional powertrain systems, chassis and body electronics, Nexperia's innovative solutions support a variety of new system designs and are compatible with future design solutions, ranging from wireless vehicle safety systems to electric vehicle chargers. They are widely used to produce energy-saving, efficient and concise products based on dedicated manufacturing and supply chains and meet long-term volume supply needs. The following highlights some of Nexperia's key products.
ESD protection devices meeting automotive Ethernet specifications
To take the next step in automotive connectivity and electrification, high-speed and high-bandwidth automotive Ethernet is required. Many industry leaders work together within the OPEN Alliance SIG to encourage automobiles to adopt Ethernet. The key goal is to deploy existing IEEE 100BASE-T1/1000BASE-T1 physical layer specifications and supplement compliance and interoperability specifications, but discrete ESD protection becomes increasingly important as more advanced electrical designs become available.
Nexperia introduced several product combinations for automotive Ethernet ESD protection devices that meet AEC-Q101 standards and IEEE OPEN Alliance 100BASE-T1 and 1000BASE-T1 standards to protect both bus lines from ESD and other transient damage.
Taking Nexperia's PESD2ETH1GXT-Q, PESD1ETH1GLS-Q and PESD1ETH1GXLS-Q as an example, these three devices are silicon-based and have multiple advantages over alternative ESD protection solutions such as varistors to provide higher reliability and improved 1 pF (maximum) diode capacitance to ensure better signal integrity.
Since these ESD protection devices are fully compliant with IEEE OPEN Alliance's 100BASE-T1 and 1000BASE-T1 test specifications, this means that customers do not need to certify themselves. Under test conditions, they perform twice as well as AEC-Q101, so customers can be confident they meet the highest vehicle quality profile and provide the highest degree of reliability.
Compared to other competing products, the three ESD protection devices combine silicon technology and resilience, reduce clamping voltage and residual current, and select the smallest leaded (SOT23) and leadless (DFN1006BD-2/SOD882BD) packages to provide maximum design flexibility, with lead-free packages with wettable flanks and automatic optical inspection (AOI) to improve assembly yields.
Gallium nitride field effect transistor has high power conversion efficiency
The development of automobile electrification increases high power requirements. It is also required to improve power conversion efficiency. Reducing power loss is a major challenge for the industry, while gallium nitride (GaN) is expected to become the mainstream technology. GaN technology shows a better performance advantage than silicon (Si) and silicon carbide (SiC) solutions. Specifically, GaN field effect transistors (FETs) provide optimal efficiency at lower system costs while making the system lighter, smaller, and cooler. Better performance GaN power transistors are suitable for higher power and meet EV specifications.
Nexperia introduced several GaN FET devices, using next-generation high-voltage GaN HEMT H2 technology, and TO-247 and Nexperia’s proprietary CCPAK surface mounting packaging, which enabled excellent switching figure of merit (FOM) and on-state performance, improved stability, and simplified application design thanks to their cascading configuration without complex drivers and controls.
The new GaN technology uses extensible through-epi vias that reduce defects and shrinking die size by about 24%. In the initial version of traditional TO-247, RDS (on) with high threshold voltages and low diode forward voltages was also reduced to only 41 mΩ (maximum, 35 mΩ typical, at 25°C). For CCPAK surface mounting versions, this reduction will be further increased to 39 mΩ (maximum, typically 33 mΩ at 25°C). Because these parts are configured as cascading devices, they are also easily driven by standard Si MOSFET drives, both versions of which meet AEC-Q101 requirements for automotive applications.
Nexperia continues to invest in the development and expansion of its product line using the next-generation GaN processes, initially releasing a traditional TO-247 version and bare die format for power module manufacturers, followed by a high-performance surface mounting CCPAK package. Nexperia's CCPAK surface mounting package replaces internal bonding wires with Nexperia's proven innovative copper-clip packaging technology, which reduces parasitic losses, optimizes electrical and thermal performance and improves reliability. CCPAK GaN FET can be used for top or bottom cooling configurations, making it widely available and helping to further improve heat dissipation.
Nexperia's GaN FET devices, including TO-247 packaged 650 V GAN041-650WSB and CCPAK packaged GAN039-650NBB, are efficient and economical solutions for high-power conversion around 650 V and 30-40 mΩ RDS (on) applications including OBCs, DC/DC converters and traction inverters in electric vehicles.
Schottky rectifier diode with new packaging technology
The Schottky diode is a type of diode with low forward voltage drop and high speed switching. It is an electronic device generated by the Schottky barrier characteristic. Typically, the diode produces a voltage drop of about 0.7-1.7 V when the current flows, but the Schottky diode has a voltage drop of only 0.15-0.45 V, thus improving the efficiency of the system and producing rectification effect.
To improve Schottky rectifier performance, Nexperia introduced a grooved Schottky rectifier packaged with copper clip-bonded FlatPower (CFP) to meet the challenging needs of efficient and space-saving design. CFP-packaged Schottky rectifiers combine low reverse current, low forward voltage and minimum Qrr to achieve optimum efficiency at high ambient temperatures. Nexperia offers a variety of high-powered CFP package options and is a real alternative to SMA package, with better thermal performance, smaller footprint, and fairly suitable for automotive applications.
In the modern automotive architecture, the number of electronic control units (ECUs) is gradually decreasing, leaving only the high-performance, functional ECUs responsible for front, rear, and body control. As a result, diode device densities for these units have increased significantly, and in order to achieve these higher densities, manufacturers are increasingly relying on modern multilayer PCBs. Compared to diode devices packaged with SMA, these multilayer PCB vertical heat dissipation designs allow designers to save up to 75% of board space via CFP2-HP while maintaining the same level of electrical performance. This durable packaging design extends the operating time of diode devices and improves plate-level reliability, while the new lead shape improves automatic optical inspection (AOI) performance.
Nexperia has recently introduced several rectifier diodes for power applications, using a new CFP2-HP package that provides standard and AECQ-101 versions, including 45V, 60V, and 100V Trench Schottky rectifier diodes (with options 1A and 2A), such as PMEG100T20ELXD-Q, a 100V, 2A Trench Schottky rectifier diode. Nexperia also added 200V, 1A PNE20010EXD-Q rectifier diodes to the portfolio for applications requiring ultrafast recovery.
Conclusion
The market for automotive electronics applications is showing an upward trend, and the adoption of high-quality, efficient and industry-compliant electronic devices will be an important key to the development of automotive electronics related products. Nexperia has a wide variety of automotive electronic ESD protection devices, power conversion devices, rectifiers and other product lines that meet customers' diversified development needs, and deserves your further understanding and adoption.