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Switcher IC Targets 800-V Automotive Apps with Advanced Wide-Creepage Package

March 6, 2025

Featuring a SiC primary power switch, this 1,700-V flyback switcher IC is now available in low-creepage, automotive-grade packaging that meets the IEC60664-1 isolation standard.

Lee Goldberg

Related To: Electronic Design

Power Integrations added a wide-creepage package option to its InnoSwitch3-AQ flyback switcher IC for automotive applications: A wide drain-to-source-pin creepage distance of 5.1 mm eliminates the need for conformal coating, making the IC compliant to the IEC60664-1 standard in 800-V vehicles while delivering improved reliability.

With support for asynchronous rectification and multimode valley switching, the controller can deliver over 90% efficiency in many automotive applications, including battery-management systems, µDC-DC converters, and emergency power supplies in main traction inverters.

The new package option offers increased primary-to-primary creepage and clearance distance between the drain and source pins required to support the higher bus voltages that will likely be adopted by most EV makers. Power Integrations’ proprietary InSOP-28G package enables the device to be used with primary-side voltages as high as 1,000 V DC, while leaving it’s other pins safely isolated—even in harsh pollution degree 2 environments.

Rated for 1,700-V CV/CC, InnoSwitch3-AQ switching power-supply ICs incorporate a silicon-carbide (SiC) primary switch capable of delivering up to 80 W of output power. The highly integrated ICs reduce the number of components required to implement a power supply by as much as 50%, saving space, enhancing system reliability, and mitigating component sourcing challenges.

In addition to the isolation, the enhanced packages’ increased drain-pin width provides even higher resistance to the higher high levels of shock and vibration found in automotive applications, especially in eAxle systems. The new ICs also have improved functionality for remote on/off.

Pricing is $6 per unit for 10,000-unit quantities. Sample ICs are available now with full production in the first quarter of 2025.

About the Author

Lee Goldberg | Contributing Editor

Lee Goldberg is a self-identified “Recovering Engineer,” Maker/Hacker, Green-Tech Maven, Aviator, Gadfly, and Geek Dad. He spent the first 18 years of his career helping design microprocessors, embedded systems, renewable energy applications, and the occasional interplanetary spacecraft. After trading his ‘scope and soldering iron for a keyboard and a second career as a tech journalist, he’s spent the next two decades at several print and online engineering publications.

Lee’s current focus is power electronics, especially the technologies involved with energy efficiency, energy management, and renewable energy. This dovetails with his coverage of sustainable technologies and various environmental and social issues within the engineering community that he began in 1996. Lee also covers 3D printers, open-source hardware, and other Maker/Hacker technologies.

Lee holds a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Thomas Edison College, and participated in a colloquium on technology, society, and the environment at Goddard College’s Institute for Social Ecology. His book, “Green Electronics/Green Bottom Line - A Commonsense Guide To Environmentally Responsible Engineering and Management,” was published by Newnes Press.

Lee, his wife Catherine, and his daughter Anwyn currently reside in the outskirts of Princeton N.J., where they masquerade as a typical suburban family.

Lee also writes the regular PowerBites series.