Smart power technologies evolution

This paper reviews the evolution in the mixed power process field driven by the need to integrate more and more functions onto the same chip. The more recent BCD (Bipolar, CMOS, DMOS) and VIPower(R) (Vertical Intelligent Power) examples are a demonstration of how Smart Power technologies evolves today following, with some delay, the road maps of VLSI CMOS and BiCMOS as well as Power Discrete advancements (i.e. MDmesh), The issues behind the trend to improve logic performances and power characteristics, for a given die size, are discussed as well as the new possible realizations in the field of super smart power ICs.