Application Note The PMEG1020EA and PMEG2010EA MEGA Schottky diodes Philips Semiconductors AN10230-01 The PMEG1020EA and PMEG2010EA MEGA Schottky diodesa pair designed for high efficiency rectification by Martin Lübbe Introduction Schottky diodes have found various applications in the fields of power supply and power management. Some characteristic examples are reverse polarity protection, OR’ing circuits and switch mode power supplies. These applications all exploit the reduced forward voltage VF at a given forward current IF as compared to standard pnswitching diodes. With the MEGA type range Philips launched a whole portfolio of novel Schottky diodes designed especially to further improve the efficiency in the respective application. The efficiency improvements are twofold: On the one hand the MEGA Schottkys are offered in small SMD packages like SOD323 (SC-76), SOD523 (SC-79) or the brand new, ultra flat SOT666, allowing a more efficient use of the available board space. On the other hand we developed novel production processes to further increase the electrical performance of MEGA Schottkys in the medium power range up to a few Amps. In the following we will present two diodes, which very clearly illustrate the idea behind the MEGA portfolio, namely the PMEG1020EA and PMEG2010EA types. Both types are available in SOD323 (SC-76) and in the new ultra flat SOT666 (extension EV instead of EA). Main features The main parameters of both diodes are summarized in Table 1 and typical forward and reverse characteristics can be seen in Fig. 1. Table 1: Electrical comparison of PMEG2010EA and PMEG1020EA MEGA Schottky diodes. Conditions PMEG2010EA PMEG1020EA Unit VR Continuous reverse voltage - 20 10 V IF Continuous forward current - 1 2 A VF1 Forward voltage IF = 1A 480 280 mV VF2 Forward voltage IF = 2A - 350 mV IR1 Reverse current VR = 8V 0.007 1 mA IR2 Reverse current VR = 15V 0.01 - mA CD Diode capacitance VR = 5V 19 37 pF Page 1 of 6 The PMEG1020EA and PMEG2010EA MEGA Schottky diodes Application Note Reverse current / mA EA 4S 20 10 S7 PM EG 100 1P EG 10 20 1000 B4 EA 3 Philips Semiconductors PM Forward current / mV AN10230-01 10 1 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 Forward voltage / mV 1 P G10 ME A 20E 0.1 1 PS 0.01 74S B4 3 EG 2 PM 0 5 E 010 10 A 15 20 Reverse voltage / V Fig. 1:Forward (left) and reverse (right) bias characteristics for the PMEG2010EA and PMEG1020EA MEGA Schottky diodes as compared to the 1PS74SB43 standard Schottky diode. In Fig. 1 we also included the typical curves for the well-known 1PS74SB43 rectifier, which is available in the SC-74 package. It can be clearly seen that the forward and reverse performances of the PMEG2010EA very closely match the performance of the 1PS74SB43 standard Schottky diode, which has twice the size of the PMEG2010EA. This example clearly illustrates the first branch of the MEGA Schottky innovation: Same performance on less required board space. For a huge part of medium power applications with currents up to 1 A the PMEG2010EA will be the standard diode of choice. Especially for DC/DC converter applications this diode is also available in combination with NPN or PNP transistors in a single SOT457 (SC-74) package (typenames PMEM4010PD and PMEM4010ND). However, especially in battery driven equipment the efficient use of the available power is of superior importance. For these cases we further extended the technologic limits and designed the PMEG1020EA. Regarding Fig. 1 the differences of PMEG1020EA as compared to PMEG2010EA are obvious: The VF and thus the forward power loss PF is drastically reduced in the whole current range. At the same time due to a fundamental physical fact the reverse current IR increases by a considerable amount. The consequences of this behavior are best illustrated by calculating an application example. Application example To further compare the two MEGA diodes we calculate a practical example: It has been stated before that a main application for the PMEG1020EA is battery driven equipment. In many of these systems different supply voltages are needed for the various functional blocks. DC/DC converters mainly realize the required voltage conversion from the varying battery voltage to the different system voltages. Let’s assume we have to convert the voltage of 3.6 V from a Li- ion battery to a voltage of 1.5 V, which is required by many modern ICs. For this purpose the buck converter topology is widely used (see Fig. 2). The duty cycle of the converter is determined by the ratio of the input and the output voltage. For the voltage conversion of 3.6 V down to 1.5 V we get a duty cycle of approx. 40 % for the transistor and 60 % for the diode. During the on- state of the Page 2 of 6 Application Note The PMEG1020EA and PMEG2010EA MEGA Schottky diodes Philips Semiconductors AN10230-01 Vin = 3.6 V Vin = 3.6 V VR = 3.6 V IF = 100 mA RL RL Fig. 2: Schematics a buck converter as calculated in the text. Left hand side: Diode on- state, transistor switch is open. Right hand side: Diode off- state, transistor switch is closed. diode the output current Iout is flowing through the diode (see Fig. 2, left) while during the off- state the diode is reverse biased with the whole input voltage Vin (see Fig. 2, right).For an output current of 100 mA and a Schottky junction temperature Tj of 25 °C the calculation of the power loss can be found in Table 2. Table 2: PMEG2010EA and PMEG1020EA efficiency calculation for the presented Buck converter application example. PMEG2010EA PMEG1020EA Unit Forward voltage at Iout = 100mA VF (see Fig. 1) 300 170 mV Power loss in forward bias PF = VF x 100 mA 30 17 mW Reverse current at Vin = 3.6 V IR (see Fig. 1) 0.004 0.6 mA Power loss in reverse bias PR = IR x 3.6 V <0.1 2.2 mW Mean power loss in cycle for 60% diode duty factor Ptot in percentage of Pout Pout = 1.5 V x 100 mA = 150 mW Ptot= 0.6 x PF + 0.4 x PR 18 11 mW Ptot/ Pout 12 7.3 % Comparing the PMEG2010EA and the PMEG1020EA the power loss in percentage of the output power is reduced from 12 % to 7.3 %, which is a reduction by 40 %. If we assume that the diode accounts for half of the total power dissipation we get an overall efficiency improvement from 76 % (100 % - 12 % - 12 %) to 80.7 % (100 % - 12 % 7.3%). At higher diode duty cycles or lower input voltages Vin the improvement will be even more pronounced. For the following part it is important to note that in case of the highly efficient PMEG1020EA the reverse power loss PR is a significant part of the total power loss. In our exemplary buck converter application this fact limits the operating range of the PMEG1020EA towards high temperatures as the reverse current increases with rising temperature. In the calculation of Table 2 we were also able to neglect the self- heating of the diode due to the very limited dissipated power. At high ambient temperatures Ta we will have to include the influence of the rising junction temperature Tj. Temperature dependence Fig. 3 shows the variation of the main parameters VF and IR for different junction temperatures. The forward voltage at a given current is reduced by approximately 1 mV for a temperature rise of 1 °C while the reverse current doubles each 15 °C. Page 3 of 6 The PMEG1020EA and PMEG2010EA MEGA Schottky diodes Application Note AN10230-01 Philips Semiconductors Reverse current / mA Forward voltage / mV 350 IF = 100mA 300 PME G 250 2010 EA 200 PME G 150 1020 EA 100 20 40 60 VR = 3.6V 100 2 10 EG M P 10 1 0 01 G2 E PM 0.1 EA 0.01 1E-3 20 80 A 0E Junction temperature / °C 40 60 80 100 120 Junction temperature / °C Fig. 3: Temperature dependence of the forward voltage (left hand side) and the reverse current (right hand side) for the PMEG2010EA and PMEG1020EA MEGA Schottky diodes. The junction temperature, which is reached in the application, depends on the ambient temperature, the dissipated power and the thermal resistance Rth(j-a) from junction to ambient. The calculation of the junction temperature Tj is a complicated task, which we will skip in this paper. Just the result for different ambient temperatures is shown in Table 3. The table is very similar to Table 2, only two rows were added for the ambient temperature Ta and the junction temperature Tj, respectively. Table 3: Ambient temperature dependence of efficiency improvement using PMEG1020EA instead of PMEG2010EA. PMEG2010EA PMEG1020EA Unit Ambient temperature Ta 25 35 45 55 65 25 35 45 55 65 °C Junction temperature Tj 32.8 42.5 52.2 61.9 71.6 29.7 39.7 49.9 60.5 72.0 °C VF (see Fig. 3) 290 278 265 253 241 159 146 133 120 106 mV PF = VF x 100 mA 29.0 27.8 26.6 25.3 24.1 15.9 14.6 13.3 12.0 10.6 mW IR (see Fig. 3) 0.02 0.03 0.05 0.08 0.14 0.69 1.17 2.00 3.50 6.42 mA PR = IR x 3.6 V 0.07 0.11 0.18 0.30 0.50 2.49 4.22 7.21 12.6 23.1 mW Ptot= 0.6 x PF + 0.4 x PR 17.4 16.7 16.0 15.3 14.7 10.5 10.4 10.9 12.2 15.6 mW 12 11 11 10 10 7 7 7 8 10 % Ptot/ Pout The calculation bases on two assumptions: First we assumed the devices to be placed on standard footprint without extra cooling areas. In this case we get an Rth(j-a) value of 450 K/W. The second assumption is an operating frequency, which is high enough to get an almost constant temperature during the diodes on and off cycle. As in DC/DC converters normally the operating frequency is above 50 kHz to keep the size and the costs of the passive components small this assumption is fulfilled. Page 4 of 6 Application Note The PMEG1020EA and PMEG2010EA MEGA Schottky diodes Philips Semiconductors AN10230-01 Regarding Table 3 the main difference is obvious: While the efficiency of the PMEG2010EA diode increases with rising ambient temperature, the effect is the other direction for the PMEG1020EA. The reason is the higher power loss under reverse bias for the PMEG1020EA. At an ambient temperature of 65 °C (149 °F) the power losses are comparable for both diodes. For even higher ambient temperatures the results very much depend on the exact nature of the mounting and the cooling conditions including the amount of air circulation. We therefore did not perform the calculation. In these cases the usability of the PMEG1020EA has to be thoroughly investigated which exceeds the scope of the present paper. Conclusion We presented two diodes of the new Philips MEGA Schottky typerange: The PMEG2010EA and the PMEG1020EA. We illustrated how these diodes can yield an electrical performance comparable to standard Schottky diodes in considerably larger packages. For an exemplary DC/DC conversion application we have shown how using the PMEG1020EA can boost the diode efficiency. Further we investigated the temperature dependence of the derived efficiency and found that at an ambient temperature of 65 °C (149 °F) the efficiencies for both diodes are aligning. In conclusion, the PMEG2010EA is a standard diode for medium power applications, which yields top class performance in a very small package. The PMEG1020EA on the other hand is the diode of choice if efficient use of the available power is extremely important. Due to the increasing losses at higher temperatures this diode is most suitable in applications with limited temperature ranges like handheld devices, laptops or temperature controlled circuit boards. Page 5 of 6 The PMEG1020EA and PMEG2010EA MEGA Schottky diodes AN10230-01 Application Note Philips Semiconductors For further information please visit our discrete semiconductors web site (http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/products/standard/discretes/) or contact your next sales representative for updated information. © Koninklijke Philips Electronics N. V. 2003 All rights are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without the prior written consent of the copyright owner. The information presented in this document does not form part of any quotation or contract, is believed to be accurate and reliable and may be changed without notice. No liability will be accepted by the publisher for any consequence of its use. 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