Integrated power switches with built-in FET protection

27th January 2017

Anna Flockett

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The expansion of the HFET1 integrated power switch portfolio from Silego has been announced. To address high-performance applications in enterprise computing, industrial, and in-cabin infotainment markets, these five new products cover 12V and 24V applications from 2.5-6A. These products include a suite of system-level protection features including internal FET power limiting.

In many high-power (current and/or voltage) applications, discrete circuits or integrated power switches are used to prevent very high inrush currents from causing system brownouts or unintentional system resets.

In addition to this responsibility, tight PCB layouts, poor thermal cooling, and elevated operating temperatures place additional performance burdens on system protection devices. In these and other cases, system designers are forced to select very expensive solutions or design custom and complicated, discrete, PCB-space-consuming alternatives. Silego’s HFET1 products simplify system designers’ workload while minimising system risk.

In PCB-space-efficient 4.8mm² footprints, these high-voltage/current IPSs combine ON/OFF control, inrush current control, under/over-voltage detection, two-level current-limit protection, and fault reporting features.

With the exception of the SLG59H1127V, these new HFET1 products include an analogue current monitor output feature. This feature alone offers substantial system BOM cost/PCB savings by eliminating the need for an external current shunt resistor, a difference/level-shifting amplifier, and associated passive components to measure directly FET current.

While all products can operate over the industrial temperature range, the SLG59H1013V and the SLG59H1016V are fully specified over the entire -40 to 125°C extended industrial temperature range.

All HFET1 IPSs implement a power-limit protection scheme to protect the internal FET against any abuse on startup or during nominal operation. Compared to the other four products with an internal 5W power limit, the SLG59H1128V’s 15W power-limit threshold relaxes external circuit constraints on startup.

Using Silego’s proprietary MOSFET design IP, these integrated system protection devices maintain ultra-stable across the applied supply voltage range. Applying Silego’s proprietary CuFET technology, the Company’s design engineers deftly package these products in low thermal-resistance, RoHS-compliant footprints that generate low thermal gradients in space-constrained, high-current applications.