Texas Instruments (finally) plugs the MOSFET hole in its power portfolio

TI, long a leader in the power conversion IC market, has had to partner with MOSFET vendors to provide the high-speed switching devices for its power converter designs. As the PWM controller, the switching device driver, and the switching device itself all begin to converge into a single power supply in package (PSiP) or even power supply on chip (PwrSOC), this portfolio weakness has been glaring. TI patched the hole on Wednesday with its announcement of the purchase of CICLON, a 2-year-old start-up that traces its roots back to Bell Labs.

CICLON (pronounced “sea-clone”) has a product line of MOSFETs based on its NexFET technology, which is calls a hybrid of first-generation planar FET technology and second-generation trench FET technology. The company claims that compared to trench-type power MOSFETs with the same on resistance, NexFET technology delivers less than half the gate charge (Qg). Lower charge means that converters can run at higher frequencies while maintaining the same power loss or run more efficiently at the same frequency. So your dc-dc converter that was previously limited to 350kHz by switching losses in now cruising along at 700kHz and able to take advantage of the smaller magnetics that the higher frequencies confer. This is a significant acquisition for TI as it jockeys for position in the coming generation of hyper-integrated power conversion devices.

MOSFET Technology Comparison