EL SEGUNDO, CA. April 1999 - International Rectifier (IRâ ) has announced that it has developed a power MOSFET technology that is equivalent in performance to the "CoolMOS ä " technology from Infineon Technologies AG (formerly the semiconductor division and now a fully-owned subsidiary of Siemens AG). This new technology joins the industry's most advanced planar, stripe and trench processes in IR's Technology Toolbox – an arsenal of capabilities assembled to solve application-specific power conversion problems in important vertical markets.

"IR's CoolMOS-equivalent technology is a real testimonial to the capabilities of our dedicated R&D wafer fab in El Segundo, California, and to our SMPS sector-focused R&D team," says Nabeel Gareeb, Senior VP of the Switch Group at IR. "Our approach of developing products targeted at market sectors will allow us to continue to maintain our leadership in the power conversion market."

April 1, 1999 IR Announces Substantial Upgrade to Existing 500-600V Offline HEXFET® SMPS Power MOSFET Family more...

IR says that its analysis shows that in their initial generation, the CoolMOS-type technologies will likely be focused primarily on the highest-performance applications.

"Although the performance of our version of the technology is virtually identical to that of Infineon's CoolMOS technology in the same packages, we believe the real opportunity is to combine the new silicon technology with IR's latest package innovations to take power density capability to an even higher level," Gareeb explained. "When you consider IR's silicon and packaging innovations together, we are talking about power densities a full order of magnitude higher than could be offered even a couple of years ago in any given package outline," Gareeb points out. "We will be sampling our key customers this month in the standard outline packages to obtain rapid feedback on the technology's capability in targeted applications. We then intend to quickly extend the technology to our 'Super' series of packages to give our customers a huge competitive edge."

Due to the large number of new products they have developed for SMPS, IR is segmenting its SMPS product offering into three distinct performance tiers:

IR's New SMPS Product "Performance Tiers":

IR Series:	Silicon Technology	Package Options	Representative 500V Performance (Ex: TO-247 outline)	Samples & Production Timing
"Benchmark" Series	CoolMOS-Equivalent	IR's "Super" Packages	45 mW (Projected)	(Plans tba May/June '99)
		Industry- Standard Types	70 mW (Projected)	Samples NOW, Prod'n Late Summer
	Latest-gen Conventional	IR's "Super" Packages	130 mW	NOW (See related news release)
"High Performance" Series	Gen 3.5 Conventional	Industry- Standard Types	230 mW	NOW (See related news release)
"Standard" Series	Gen 3.5 Conventional	Industry- Standard Types	270 mW	Spring '99 (See related news release)
	Older (Gen 3) Conventional	Industry- Standard Types	270 mW (Higher Cost)	Ongoing

1) For applications that require levels of performance not achievable by present technologies (up to a factor of 5 times better), IR will offer devices with CoolMOS-type silicon in IR's "Super" series packages as part of its "Benchmark Series" of SMPS power MOSFETs. The details of package types and products will be outlined in the May/June timeframe, with volume production availability in late summer. The CoolMOS-based device types will complement the other members of IR's " Benchmark Series."

2) For mainstream applications that require a significant improvement in R_DS(on) (30 to 40 percent) with multiple supplier capability, IR now offers a new generation of "High-Performance Series" SMPS HEXFETâ power MOSFETs in standard and IR-specific package outlines. The entire family of parts and specs is provided in a separate release (dated 1 April 1999), with the highlight that these are available NOW.

3) For existing applications that primarily require continuity of supply with existing specs, IR now offers a "Standard Series" replacement for its traditional family of industry-standard types. Using the same manufacturing technology as its newer, "High Performance Series" types above, the new family will allow IR to continue to keep pace with market price/performance expectations. These new "Standard Series" types will be offered as replacements for the traditional types, and the nomenclature would be IRF840A (versus the traditional IRF840), IRFP450A (versus the traditional IRFP450), etc. IR will also continue to offer the older part types for customers who desire that. (For a complete listing of currently available and/or planned part types, please refer to the news release mentioned above).

"This tiering of performance levels will allow designers to choose the part that best meets their cost/performance tradeoff. We feel this latest series of developments and product segmentation will allow us to continue to provide our customers with the best solutions for their power conversion problems, with the depth of product line to meet their specific cost/performance needs well into the next decade," Gareeb concluded.

Gareeb continued, "We should also note that we have found that this first generation design of CoolMOS-type technology, exhibits a level of variability that we believe will prove vexing to the average power MOSFET producer, much like the very early generations of power MOSFETs were. Potential customers have already experienced this in trying to obtain CoolMOS-based products in volume, even now, nearly a year after their initial introduction.

"But we do feel there is a very bright future for the technology. IR is the world's expert at high-volume manufacturing of power MOSFETs, and we are confident in our ability to evolve this technology into a high-volume-manufacturing platform," Gareeb noted. "We are committed to using our manufacturing experience to aggressively evolve the manufacturing elements of CoolMOS-equivalent technology to show the world how to do it...much like we did with the early generations of HEXFET^® power MOSFETs."

IR says that it will announce its detailed product plans for the CoolMOS-equivalent technology in the May-June timeframe, with volume production slated for summer.

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