EL SEGUNDO, CA. January 1999 - International Rectifier (IR^®), the power expert, now offers a new family of 600V half-bridge gate drivers that are purpose designed and tuned for variable speed appliance motor drives. This product family is well suited for applications in refrigerator compressors, washing machines and air conditioners that are the most demanding in terms of cost, EMI reduction and design simplicity. Added value benefits for this gate drive solution include:

SIMPLICITY - The 8-pin products, IR2106/ IR2107/ IR2108/ IR2109, are the lowest pin count possible for integrating high-side and low-side gate drivers in one IC. The four part types differ by input to output logic, thus further simplifying the interface selection to controller logic.

VERSATILITY - The 14-pin products, IR21064/ IR21074/ IR21084/ IR21094, incorporate external programmable dead-time and separate logic vs. power ground pins. The added features allow noise-free applications in higher power appliance drives.

REDUCED EMI - The gate drive output is designed to reduce EMI and includes options for internal pull-up and pull-down gate drive impedance settings to achieve the desirable switching profile.

Variable speed drives are fast becoming a necessity to meet the stringent requirements for the environmental friendly "Green" standard for all types of home appliances. Barriers in cost, design complexity and EMI have to be reduced quickly by the designers of the drives. Low cost DSP controllers and FETs or IGBTs are helping the cause. Now IR's new family of appliance tuned gate drivers will remove the last remaining barriers.