Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1490195
Apex 2022 15 Greater losses result in more thermal generation (i.e., the device gets hotter). High temperatures limit the reliability of analog circuits by causing unexpected device behavior and decreasing the mean time to device failure. Therefore, the increased impact of device parasitics makes achieving high reliability at high power significantly more difficult. Architecture and Reliability High reliability and high power can also be at odds in analog power electronics because of the architectural choices necessary for certain high-power applications. For example, scientific data acquisition and measurement systems commonly require high power. Consider a system like an atomic force microscope. Here, the most important design goal is to achieve the best sensitivity and accuracy possible so that the microscope can detect very small objects while still providing very high-resolution images. In such an application, a designer is limited in the architectural decisions they can make with respect to their analog power electronics. For example, when a designer is considering amplifiers, a strong choice for the highest efficiency—and, hence, the lowest thermal generation—would be a class-D amplifier. Class-D amplifiers are a form of nonlinear switching amplifiers that rely on the constant turning on and off of MOSFETs in a half-bridge configuration. The problem is that these switching amplifiers produce large amounts of electromagnetic interference from the surge currents (dI/dt) and peak voltages (dv/dt). In applications requiring high sensitivity and accuracy, like data acquisition, this electromagnetic interference is unacceptable, as it will limit device performance. Hence, high-power systems designers must use lower- efficiency linear amplifiers such as class-A/B. The efficiency drops from around 90% range for class-D to 50% range for class-A/B. Beyond amplifiers, the same can be said for switching power supplies and regulators, which may offer higher efficiency but come at the cost of increased electromagnetic interference. In these cases, a designer of high-power systems is forced to use lower-efficiency architectures, with the same detrimental result to device reliability: Greater thermal generation. resistances, such as channel resistance, which cause the devices to consume unwanted power during device operation. Beyond these components, integrated circuits experience parasitics on a much higher level. Parasitics can occur from the device packaging, bond wires, the substrate layout, and the printed circuit board layout. In normal, low-power applications, the impact of these parasitics is generally negligible, but for high-power applications, the impact could be significant. That's because high-power applications operate using higher voltages and/or currents, meaning that parasitics on the component, package, and board level experience greater overall losses in the form of IR, L di/dt, and C dv/dt. APEX MICROTECHNOLOGY TAKES A UNIQUE APPROACH TO DESIGN AND PACKAGING TO MAINTAIN HIGH RELIABILITY AT HIGH POWER.