EL SEGUNDO, CA. April 2000 - International Rectifier (IR^®), the power conversion experts, today announced the availability of more than 50 power semiconductors that enable benchmark efficiency in several emerging isolated and buck DC-DC converter topologies at ever lower output voltages. These announcements are part of IR's comprehensive DC-DC roadmap for power conversion components and packaging capabilities first demonstrated in January, 2000.

"Our roadmap is on schedule to provide the power conversion component and packaging technology to power advanced microprocessors at under 1 Volt - a key enabling factor for the next generations of servers, routers and desktop PCs," said Alex Lidow, CEO at International Rectifier. "With currents escalating as supply voltages drop, designers are increasingly challenged to implement efficient distributed power supplies at the heart of servers, routers, and telecom equipment, as well as Internet appliances and even 1GHz PCs."

IR's new power semiconductors keep isolated DC-DC converters using dual-stage, bridge and single-forward topologies with sub-2V outputs operating at benchmark efficiency. They also offer a complete new component set for multiphase buck converters, enabling benchmark efficiency for outputs of 1.6V at currents of 40A or more. In addition, synchronous buck designers now have a component solution that demonstrates high efficiency at 1V output voltage.

"Part of our latest effort - MOSFETs for isolated DC-DC converters - helps brick manufacturers eliminate more than 50 percent of the losses in their sub-2V-output 200W product lines," Lidow noted. "And, our roadmap gives them a clear view of low voltage solutions from IR coming soon.

"Similarly, designers of buck converters for powering AMD Athlon and Intel Pentium III processors on PC motherboards or in embedded applications now have access to the industry's first custom-built chipset for multiphase converters," Lidow said. "Our goal is to get ahead of the declining logic voltage curve and have power solutions for future processors ready for deployment in the marketplace as they become available.

"Finally, our new IRF7901D1 Dual FETKY^TM essentially 'componentizes' a 1V Buck DC-DC converter," Lidow noted, "achieving benchmark operating efficiency for advanced portable systems such as Internet appliances, PDAs, cell phones, and sub-notebook PCs, where improved power density is critical at ever decreasing operating voltages.

"Our IR DC-DC roadmap also includes future sub-1V-output solutions for both buck and isolated topologies," Lidow said. "We're looking forward to later this Fall when our vision for integrating a large part of a converter in a multi-chip-module (MCM), reducing component count and board space in converters by more than 70 percent, will be introduced. By enabling new levels in power density, this development will ultimately lead to breakthrough silicon and packaging solutions tailored for multi-phasing and multi-stage DC-DC."

DC-DC designers can view the complete IR DC-DC roadmap and monitor its progress at a special IR website at DC2DC.irf.com. They can also order samples of the new devices directly from the site, as well as take advantage of its DC-DC design center capabilities. These allow engineers to better evaluate DC-DC systems requirements to recommend application-tuned components from IR to boost efficiency.