New 650V Silicon Carbide Schottky Diode

Cree Inc., a market leader in silicon carbide power devices, has announced the latest Z-RecTM 650V junction Schottky Barrier (JBS) diode family to meet the latest data center power system requirements. The new JBS diode's blocking voltage is 650V, which can meet the recent data center power architecture modifications. According to industry consulting experts, this can increase energy efficiency by up to 5%. Since the data center's power consumption accounts for almost 10% of the world's annual electricity consumption, any level of energy efficiency improvement can help to significantly reduce overall energy consumption.

Conventional switching power supplies typically have input voltages ranging from 90V to 264V, which can support various AC input power sources around the world. Existing data center power architectures typically use the three-phase/480V power provided by the local power supply unit. The three-phase/480V power supply is stepped down to a three-phase/208V power supply via a Power Transformer, and is further processed to serve as an input power supply for the server power supply. Due to the loss of the transformer, this approach will reduce the overall efficiency.

Recent trends in the development of data center power systems require the elimination of the 480 V to 208 V step-down process to increase the overall efficiency of the data center. Now the server power supply is expected to obtain a wider general line voltage (safety range of 277V + 10%) from 90V to 305V directly from the three-phase/480V phase voltage, and no longer obtain 120V AC voltage from the three-phase/208V phase voltage. This architecture eliminates the need for a step-down transformer and avoids associated energy and cost expenditures.

For a server power system with a wide input voltage range of 90V to 305V to operate ideally, a power device such as a Schottky diode is required to have a maximum blocking voltage of up to 650V. Cree's latest 650V rated devices provide designers with an ideal solution when designing advanced data center and communications equipment power systems. Cree's new Z-Rec SiC diodes not only provide the required 650V blocking voltage for these advanced power systems, but also eliminate reverse recovery losses compared to silicon devices, further reducing power consumption.

Cengiz Balkas, vice president and general manager of Cree's Power and RF Division, explained: "SiC technology is critical to the development of a new generation of advanced, energy-efficient data center power system designs because it essentially eliminates diode switching losses. As we all know, switching Loss is the main reason for the low energy efficiency of traditional silicon devices. Therefore, the use of silicon carbide devices instead of silicon devices can increase the efficiency of the power factor correction stage of the power supply by two percentage points, which can bring greater results compared to purely architectural modifications. The total efficiency is improved."

The C3DXX065A series is the first of a family of 650V Z-Rec Schottky diodes and is available in 4A, 6A, 8A, and 10A versions, both in the TO-220-2 package. The rated operating temperature range of all devices is -55°C to +175°C.