Meanwhile, Fairchild Semiconductor is aggressively raising the bar on its 1.2-µm BCD process, which is comparable to the BCD5 process of STMi-croelectronics. Like National, Fairchild is in the scaling mood, hoping to reach 0.5-µm design rules for its BCD process within a year. Aiming to serve the data storage markets with its new process, Fairchild is seeking to achieve 70-V breakdown ratings for its power MOSFETs.
The process doesn't stop here. Like others, Fairchild has crafted a roadmap that points toward 0.35-µm features within three years. For very high-voltage applications, it has in its arsenal a 3.0-µm BCD process that supports 650-V breakdowns.
Several parts based on the process are already in production. A device that exemplifies the technology is the FSDH0165, an off-line switched-mode power-supply (SMPS) IC that combines a voltage-mode PWM controller with a 650-V SenseFET LDMOS transistor on the same substrate (Fig. 4).
Within two years, Fairchild hopes to inject more strength into its high-voltage BCD process, to support 1200-V applications. As it refurbishes the process for higher voltages, the 3.0-µm BCD process will also be shrunk to smaller design rules for more integration, notes Reno Rosetti, director of strategic planning for Fairchild's analog and mixed-signal division. This high-voltage process is tailored for off-line power supplies.
To offer an optimum price point for a given application, Fairchild has adopted a system-partitioning ap-proach, rather than crafting a total SoC solution. "Though the process can pack an SMPS controller, protection circuits, logic, and power MOSFETs on the same monolithic die, we're creating building blocks for smart power solutions," asserts Madhu Rayabhari, director of strategic marketing for Fairchild Semiconductor's analog and mixed-signal division.
Armed with junction-isolated CMOS-DMOS fabrication technology, Supertex Inc. is readying a BCD process that promises to bring programmability to its high-voltage ring-generator chips for tele-communications. As a result, the company will en-able digital programming of amplitude, ringing, and dc offset, thereby providing flexibility to ad-dress global requirements.
To reduce the die size of its high-voltage display driver chips, the company also is exploring other power structures that will improve power device densities substantially. For that task, Supertex is developing a dielectric isolation that will allow its designers to use SCRs instead of conventional power MOSFETs in high-voltage display driver ICs. In fact, under a contract from the United States Display Consortium (USDC), the company is readying high-voltage plasma display drivers with integrated high-speed SCRs and logic functions on the same monolithic die.
Others racing to deliver a complete power supply on-chip include California Micro Devices Corp., Semtech Corp., Philips Semiconductors, and Texas Instruments Inc. For applications that need multiple output voltages, these companies are packing two or more voltage regulators that can be digitally controlled via some sort of logic or microcontroller.