Today, minimizing electricity wastage throughout the value chain still is the most realistic and impacting way to go green. The biggest consumers of electric power are motors, lighting and power supplies respectively. According to the German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association (ZVEI), if the German industry would convert to electronically controlled drives to a level of 50 percent, electricity savings of 20 percent could be achieved. In numerical terms, this would amount to 22 TWh annually or nine coal-fired power stations in the 400MW class that could be saved. The potential that this improvement would allow at global level can be seen from the fact that currently only about 10 percent of electrical drives are estimated to be electronically controlled.
Renewable energy sources (such as windmills and solar power plants) will continue to increase their share as conventional sources get more expensive and are not favored due to their impact on the environment. There are many projections indicating that the share of renewable energy sources will continue to rise; from a conservative 8 percent estimate by the EIA to a 30 percent estimate by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council. One thing is for sure: Efficiency is critical to the proliferation of green power. Efficient generation and conversion of green energy into consumable electricity ensures the viability of green energy as the alternative energy.
Energy efficiency is one of the key focus areas of Infineon. Being one of the leading providers of power semiconductors for industrial applications, Infineon provides semiconductors and modules that minimize power dissipation and maximize energy savings throughout the entire value chain from energy generation to energy distribution and consumption. For the past five years, Infineon has maintained pole position in the field of power semiconductors, according to IMS Research. The company has made it its mission together with its customers to tap the vast potential semiconductor technologies offer to reduce electricity wastage to a minimum. Whether it is managing electricity from green energy sources or through “greening” of traditional energy sources, Infineon is fully committed to highest efficiency, lowest wastage.
POWER GENERATION AND CONVERSION
Among the fastest growing applications that considerably benefit from recent heightened awareness about the environment and energy cost are solar inverters for photovoltaic systems, as used on roof tops and in photovoltaic power plants. Infineon’s discrete IGBTs, MOSFETs such as CoolMOS as well as Silicon Carbide (SiC) devices in power modules and stacks help to raise solar inverters’ efficiency up to 98 percent and help to feed as much solar-based electricity into the power grid as possible.
POWER TRANSMISSION
Infineon’s disc thyristors are already widely deployed in low-loss electric power distribution networks. New high-voltage direct-current transmission (HVDC) projects incorporate Infineon's light-triggered thyristors, which have a blocking capability up to 8kV, to ensure low-loss and safe transport of energy over long distances. An example illustrating the point is the energy generation by hydro and wind power plants in the interior of China and its transport across thousands of kilometers to the coast where it is consumed.
POWER CONSUMPTION
Using microcontrollers and power semiconductors in motor control, power consumption of electric devices can be reduced by 20 to 30 percent. The use of electronic instead of magnetic lamp ballast reduces energy consumption of lighting systems by 25 percent. Electronically controlled drives in air-conditioning systems could increase the energy efficiency by 30 to 40 percent. In household appliances, the substitution of electric ovens with induction cookers results in a decrease of electricity consumption of 25 percent.
Consider the example of power supply. According to various market research institutes, a total of about 30 million servers were installed worldwide by the end of 2006. This figure is to grow to a total of more than 45 million units installed in 2011. A server consumes an average of 1.2kW—that means a global consumption of 36,000MW. Enhanced efficiency through deployment of Infineon’s CoolMOS MOSFETs could make a decisive contribution in this regard. Even a reduction in demand by 1 percent, corresponding to 360MW, would be practically equivalent to the capacity of a hydroelectric power station, not to forget that more efficient power supplies also have reduced cooling demands.
TRACTION AND DRIVE SYSTEMS
Electronic controllers in electrical drive systems can yield large savings. There are two principal approaches for drive and motor systems. On the one hand, there is the energy optimization of traction drive systems in combination with braking power recovery. According to studies carried out by the German railway group Deutsche Bahn and the Berlin public transportation company Berliner Verkehrsgesellschaft, there is a savings potential of roughly 300GWh in Germany alone—and that corresponds to the yearly electricity consumption of a small city with 30,000 inhabitants. On the other hand, in the area of conventional electrical drives, inverter technology and power electronics can reduce the individual consumption of such applications by up to 40 percent.
AUTOMOTIVE & HYBRID DRIVE SOLUTIONS
Electric engines in drive trains for private and commercial vehicles such as municipal buses, taxis, inner-city delivery vehicles and airport vehicles certainly enhance their efficiency and also reduce emissions. However, improved conventional powertrain solutions using sensors, microcontrollers and power electronics can also contribute to reduce fuel consumption and emission of vehicles. Electronics assistance can provide ideal fuel/air mixture in the engine, independent of the air pressure, ensuring optimal injection and ignition times within a fraction of a second.
Besides the powertrain domain there are significant improvement potentials in areas such as tire pressure monitoring, reduced idle current in control units, EPS, fuel/water pumps and more energy-efficient alternators. Car parts of all types run on electric power, including electric motors (in fuel pumps, power windows and sunroofs), lighting devices (headlights and interior lighting) and air conditioning and heating systems. Powered via the alternator, the needs of these devices increase fuel consumption. A further 10 percent fuel efficiency improvement is estimated to be drawn from these fields.
Furthermore, Infineon offers electronic power modules designed for hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) motor drive systems. The power modules HybridPACK1 (for use in “mild hybrid” vehicles) and HybridPACK2 (for “full hybrid”) reduce the cost and complexity of HEV inverter system design by using up to 30 percent less semiconductor area to achieve the required power rating.
INNOVATIONS IN POWER CONVERSION
Product designers are facing the daunting challenge of delivering smaller, smarter, more powerful, and more energy-efficient solutions. The state-of-the art technology that powers its CoolMOS, CoolSET, EiceDRIVER, TrenchStop IGBT, CiPoS, MIPAQ and PFC-IC products are here to help meet this challenge.
The innovative process technology of the CoolMOS MOSFET generations gives an on-state resistance as low as 45mΩ (in a standard package), yet still provides blocking of up to 600V. For lower blocking voltage (less than 500V), the OptiMOS family of products offers best-in-class figure-of-merit ratings.
Trench/Field Stop IGBTs and latest generation emitter controlled diodes, optimized with regard to their losses, are adjusted to the respective application conditions aiming to achieve a higher efficiency level. Today’s range includes IGBT devices from a few amperes up to several thousand amperes and blocking voltages up to 6.5kV. Infineon also has already created SiC Schottky diodes, which can run 10 times faster or occupy 1/10th the space of a similar silicon-only circuit. It is only a question of time when SiC-based concepts will replace today’s silicon-based solutions on a large scale. This would depend largely on the development of raw material prices.
Another challenge is how fast heat can be dissipated and how reliable the interconnect technologies are. In line with this, Infineon is raising the junction temperature (maximum to 175°C and operational to 150°C). In a period of five to six years the company will achieve a significant increase in the power density of its components, while increasing reliability—offering its customers a notable performance gain that justifies the use of new technologies. Infineon’s next-generation IGBT chip technology (IGBT) itself should be available within three to four years. Along with higher reliability, the new generation will in particular be characterized by lower losses, higher junction temperatures exceeding the 150 °C limit and a new packaging concept.
With the acquisition of Primarion Inc., Infineon is well positioned for the conversion of standard analog-based integrated circuit concepts in power conversion applications to digital power based solutions, enabling higher system density, better control and higher efficiency.
