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High Temperature Silicon electronics are becoming
increasingly necessary for automotive control applications such as Engine
Control Units (ECU) because of government requirements to rapidly reduce
engine emissions. The ECUs in conventional and hybrid cars are made of
multi-chip modules (MCM), reflecting the requirements of digital, analog and
power functions. However, MCMs suffer from long term reliability issues,
despite improvements made in recent years. Replacing these with power ICs,
which have bipolar analog, CMOS digital and power functions built onto one
chip will result in highly compact, lightweight and low cost ECUs. However,
to our knowledge, very few, if any, such power IC technologies exist, which
can operate at 42 V and sustain the temperature requirements of 200 degree C
or more.
Continued below .......
The available design software tools for
device modelling, circuit parameter extraction, and the rules for device and
circuit layout are applicable for temperatures only up to 175 degreeC. This
necessitates development of models (empirical, mathematical and SPICE) and
establish design criteria for low and high voltage semiconductor device
components and packages for Si smart power ICs operating at high
temperatures (225 degreeC) in automotive applications. Rapidly developing
design methodologies, simulation and modelling tools will enable (a)
reduction of design cycle time (b) reduce cost and (c) enable long term
reliability of components and packages, and; (d) shorten time to market. |
