Chip supplier Power Integrations has won a silver Leap Award for its InnoSwitch ICs.

The LEAP Awards celebrates the most innovative and forward-thinking products serving the design engineering space. Power Integrations won in the power electronics category which covers power supplies, transistors and any other power electronic circuits, components or assemblies used in power electronics, including battery and battery management.

The winning entry was part of the InnoSwitch3-AQ family. InnoSwitch3-AQ is a secondary side regulated (SSR) solution that uses FluxLink integrated magneto-inductive coupling (eliminating optocouplers), meaning that no post regulation is required, saving even more components. Simple, reliable synchronous rectification is enabled by the on-board secondary-side synchronous rectification (SR) driver which further increases efficiency. All of this allows a reduction in component count of up to 50% which means a dramatic reduction in PCB area, and provides significant improvement in system efficiency.

The new devices are automotive-qualified switching power supply ICs that incorporate a silicon carbide (SiC) primary switching MOSFET. InnoSwitch ICs are highly integrated and reduce the number of components required to implement a power supply by as much as 50 percent. With the new parts, designers save significant circuit-board space, enhance system reliability, and mitigate component sourcing challenges. With the launch of these new devices, the InnoSwitch family is now available with a choice of either cost-effective silicon, high-efficiency gallium nitride (GaN) or high-voltage SiC transistors, permitting designers to optimize their power solution across a broad range of consumer, computer, communications, industrial and automotive applications.

Delivering up to 70 watts of output power, the new ICs are targeted for use in 600- and 800-volt battery and fuel-cell electric passenger vehicles, as well as electric buses, trucks and a wide range of industrial power applications.