News & Events
Intersil Announces Power Management Components Immune to Single Event Effects in Space Applications
IRVINE, CA, June 20, 2000 — Intersil (NASDAQ: ISIL), a leading provider of power management solutions for today’s integrated communications applications, announced today a family of radiation hardened (Rad Hard) power management components specifically designed to withstand the potentially destructive, heavy ion environment of space. The negative impact that harsh radiation, known as Single Event Effects (SEE), has on electronic devices is becoming an important issue to system designers as power control device size diminishes and as the increasing demand for bandwidth drives spacecraft system complexity.
IRVINE, CA, June 20, 2000 Intersil (NASDAQ: ISIL), a leading provider of power management solutions for todays integrated communications applications, announced today a family of radiation hardened (Rad Hard) power management components specifically designed to withstand the potentially destructive, heavy ion environment of space. The negative impact that harsh radiation, known as Single Event Effects (SEE), has on electronic devices is becoming an important issue to system designers as power control device size diminishes and as the increasing demand for bandwidth drives spacecraft system complexity.
Ionizing radiation effects, also known as total dose radiation, have been well understood for years. Prior to the growing demand for space-based communications bandwidth, these have been successfully mitigated by either part-level hardening or by the shielding of sensitive electronics. Because of the nature of SEE, shielding the components is not an effective measure to guard against radiation.
Intersils new family of Rad Hard power management devices leverages off the company's dielectrically isolated, hardened silicon gate wafer fabrication process. Specifically designed to deliver highly reliable performance in harsh radiation environments, the process has been used to produce integrated circuits (ICs) vital to integrated communications applications, such as pulse width modulators (PWMs), voltage references, voltage regulators, metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) drivers and comparators.
"Intersil devices enable the design of satellite electronics systems with greatly enhanced reliability and operability," said Nick van Vonno, senior scientist for Intersil's Space and Defense Product Line. "Combining Intersils power management design expertise with the companys robust Rad Hard processes has resulted in the first power management device family hardened to guaranteed high levels of SEE. This is a strong value proposition, as it is impractical to shield against this environment."
Intersils SEE family includes the Star*Power line that features a series of power management ICs. Several of Intersils Vulcan DC-DC power conversion modules, as well as the Star*Power Gold family of power MOSFET devices, is also included in the SEE family.
The devices are hardened to total ionizing dose levels of 300krad(Si) and are available in reliable hermetic packages. They are designed for enhanced SEE hardness, with a design objective linear energy transfer (LET) rating of 82 MeV/mg/cm2. SEE hardness is achieved by a combination of hardened processing and specific design techniques such as redundancy and error correction.
About Star*Power
Intersil Star*Power products include Rad Hard power MOSFET devices, ICs and DC-DC converter modules. The power MOSFET offering includes two product series: Star*Power MOSFETs and Star*Power Gold MOSFETs. Each series spans six voltage ranges from 30V to 250V. The Star*Power MOSFET devices are optimized for low ON resistance and superior total ionizing dose performance, while the corresponding Gold devices are optimized for low gate charge and superior SEE hardness. Star*Power ICs include PWMs, voltage references, voltage regulators, MOSFET drivers and comparators. These ICs are hardened to total dose levels of 300krad(Si) and to various energetic ion related SEE. The Star*Power DC-DC converter modules offer highly efficient power conversion capability with total dose hardness of 100krad(Si) and SEE hardness of 82 MeV/mg/cm2.
About Vulcan
The Intersil Vulcan line of hybrid DC-DC converter modules leverages the Star*Power Rad Hard components. These highly efficient converters support a wide range of input and output voltages, reflecting spacecraft design trends towards higher DC bus voltages. The Vulcan modules are rated at 100krad(Si) total ionizing dose and feature SEE hardening to LET values of 82 MeV/mg/cm2.
About Intersil Corporation
Intersil Corporation uses semiconductor expertise to enable highly integrated voice, data and video communications. Intersil's integrated communications portfolio includes PRISM® Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) chip sets that enable mobile connectivity products for the home and office; analog, mixed-signal and digital integrated circuits for broadband access to wireless and wired Wide Area Networks (WANs); and power management products that enable 24x7 reliability in network servers, next generation PCs and information appliances. For more information about Intersil, visit the company's Internet homepage at www.intersil.com.
PRISM, Vulcan and Star*Power are registered trademarks of Intersil Corporation.
