Discrete Power MOSFET Package Design and Analysis

Abstract

In the world of semiconductor packaging, most of the attention is focused on high pin count, stack die/3D/TSV, and mixed-signal ICs integration. But the real workhorses in most system are the power devices that fuel those flashy central processing unit and digital signal process ICs for power management and conversion (Trends of power packaging and modeling, 2008; Trends in analog and power packaging, 2009). Discrete power device is one of these applications. Typical discrete products include various Diodes, Bipolars, metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET)s, and insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)s. One development in discrete power package is the trend of more leads for a large die. Example is the leads of the TO-220 package; they have been increased from 3 to 5 or 7 leads and above. The multiple direction heat transfer and lower electrical resistance of drain and source R_ds(on) are also the development needs. Since power levels and power density requirements continue to increase for many types of end equipment such as personal computers, servers, network, and telecom systems, it demands higher performance from the components that make up the power management system. This chapter introduces the trends of discrete power package design, material usage, and the analysis of the discrete power package performance.