Power bipolar high current density
The new high-efficiency, low voltage technology

2STF1360 Product Page 2STN1360 Product Page 2STX1360 Product Page The popularity of portable equipment such as notebooks, PDAs and cell phones, has led silicon manufacturers to produce smaller devices without sacrificing their performance. In fact, portability implies ever smaller and lighter equipment while at the same time, constant performance improvement offered by this equipment, requires increasingly efficient power switches, able to minimize power loss.
This guarantees longer battery life time and better heat dissipation. As a result, new power switches need to be designed with lower collector-emitter saturation voltage (VCE(sat)), higher current gain, and faster switching speeds. Always involved with application-specific, high performance power switch development, ST is meeting the latest marketing needs with the new, low voltage PB-HCD (power bipolar high current density) technology.

The new PB-HCD technology is an evolution of the base island technology and is optimized to work in the 10V to 100V voltage range and the 0.5A to 10A current range.
This new technology offers higher emitter efficiency achieved due to an increase of base island units (up to 1.4 times). Consequently, this new family can manage a higher level of current for the same silicon area as well as a lower collector-emitter saturation voltage, thus guaranteeing lower losses in ON state.


Base island units density comparison

The comparison between the PB-HCD and base island performance shows a higher current capability (between 15% and 20% more), which provides a higher gain characteristic as well as an excellent V_CE(sat) (between 55% and 65% less).
The behavior of h_FE and V_CE(sat) as compared to previous technologies is illustrated in the figures below.



Gain curve technology comparison


V_CE(sat) curve technology comparison

Temperature differences between the base island and PB-HCD technologies are calculated using the following formula:
T_J = Ta + Rth x V_CE(sat) x Ic
Where:
Measurements were taken from transistors contained in SOT-223 packages,
I_C = 2A,
I_B = 100mA

Thermal analyses are shown below, where it is clear that power dissipation is reduced by 30%.
The higher PB-HCD technology performance offers designers smaller package and footprint options for their portable products and applications.


V_CE(sat) curve technology comparison

The first PB-HCD technology products are:

The complementary transistor pair 2STR1215 and 2STR2215; these are specifically designed for battery charging circuits, power switches and DC/DC converters

The 2STF1360 (SOT-89), 2STN1360 (SOT-223), 2STX1360 (TO-92) and 2STL1360 (TO-92L); these are designed for LCD backlighting and
MOSFET and IGBT gate drivers.

Voltage range from 10V to 100V
Current range from 0.5A to 10A
High hFE and very low VCE(sat) at high current operation
Wide choice of surface-mount and thru-hole packages
Possible NPN and PNP combination in multi-chip device

High current capability
High efficiency
Low ON state losses
Very high power dissipation
Reduced package size

LCD backlighting
Battery charging circuits
Power switches
MOSFET and IGBT gate drivers
DC/DC converters
Motor control

A new nomenclature is used to define each low voltage power bipolar transistor made with the PB-HCD technology. It includes information on packages, current levels and breakdown voltage.



New PB-HCD low voltage bipolar nomenclature