Solid-state high-voltage auxiliary e-fuse reference design for charging apps

Mouser now stocks the Microchip Technology MSDR-EFUSE high-voltage auxiliary E-Fuse reference design. Employing the benefits of Microchip's proven 700V and 1200V Silicon Carbide mSiC products and other company technologies, this high-voltage auxiliary E-fuse solid-state relay demonstrator board provides designers with a total system solution (TSS) to diagnose the status of current, temperature and bias supply measurements of automotive and industrial power management applications all in one reference design to avoid sourcing individual parts.

The reference design includes an active circuit protection device with an integrated SiC FET and 8-bit MCU that aids with limiting currents and voltages to safer levels during fault conditions and helps withstand the sizeable magnetising inrush during a transformer start-up. This high-voltage, solid-state relay reference design supplies over-current protection (programmable in software), a configurable current-limit profile, up to a 30A continuous output load current, and two modes of short-current detection – edge-triggered and ride-through edge-triggered. Even though the demonstrator board is equipped with only AEC-qualified components designed for automotive and EV battery-based applications (400V or 800V), the board also implements a time-current characteristic (TCC) curve based on thermal characterisation that helps migrate to non-automotive applications such as DC solid-state circuit breakers.

The reference design is specified for low-voltage operation from 9V to 16V and high-voltage operation from 200V to 900V. Other features of the demonstrator board incorporate a 10µs short-circuit withstand time, up to a 20kHz switching frequency and a LIN communication interface for configurability and diagnostics.

The reference design is orderable in six variants, supporting 400V and 800V bus voltages and continuous current ratings of 10A, 20A and 30A. The demonstrator board has an operating temperature range of −40C to 85C, and target applications include EVs, HEVs, DC smart grids and industrial charging stations.