SPCO's thinpak package, an ideal building block for Power modules and Power hybrids

Silicon Power Corporation has acquired Harris' Latham Power R&D operation and has exclusive licence to Harris' Pebb technology including a number of patents on thinPak packages. At this time SPCO is supplying ONR, who is funding the Pebb program, with 250KW intelligent power modules which are assembled using parallel, pretested, size 7 and 8, thinPak packaged IGBT, diode and MCT die. In its simplest form, the thinPak is a soldered assembly of a lartge power device, usually at least a size 4 and a thin ceramic lid. The lid is metalized on the bottom side to mate to large and small device electrodes (gate, pilot, cathode, source, etc) which are connected by metalized vias to a more rugged, and convenient pattern of top side metal. If the lid material is a good conductor and/or if the lid vias are very dense, the thinPak lidded device can be cooled from both sides or treated as aflip chip device, but with no restrictions on achievable breakdown voltage The low impedance, small size and weight and rather large mechanical tolerances one can have on the top of the lid are convienient for module applications where their pre-testability leads to larger yields and better device paralleling, especially if paralleling bipolar devices with low forward drops like MCT's and diodes. The ceramic lid need not be the size of the power device in which case the lid proves a good foundation for integrating gate drivers, for example.