What's wrong with this gate drive IC?

[treez]

Hello,
have just noticed an isolated gate drive IC , the 1EDI60N12...

https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infin...N.pdf?fileId=db3a3043427ac3e201428e5da08f372a

This has 1200V of isolation and has 6A of source sink current, plus alternate source sink connections so you can eg switch off faster than on (great for PFC fets)

Why has this brilliant part not been more widely advertised? is something wrong with it?

Also, why is Infineon using it to drive a PFC FET in this app note?....it doesn't need isolation?

**broken link removed**

 

[E-design]

Maybe a price availability issue?

 

[mtwieg]

Maybe because it's new and doesn't start with IR21xx and is therefore very very scary.

 

[D.A.(Tony)Stewart]

1st advert appeared just over a year ago. https://www.infineon.com/dgdl?fileId=5546d46145f1f3a40145f994f5770ce9
I gather there are some innovation is done to reduce EMI and 1200V isolation improves surge transient performance with less filtering.

 

[mtwieg]

Analog devices has been making transformer-isolated gate drive for a while, including some with integrated isolated DC-DC converters for output power. Doesn't seem like any of them caught on, but they weren't as capable as these Infineon devices, and cost a lot more.

 

[Mr.Cool]

IXYS still makes the best gate drivers. last couple of years avago started making some decent ones. for those that design gate drivers for a living we know the system success is heavily dependent on a solid gate driver and so once you found an IC that is rock solid.. you tend NOT to change it for any reason.

having said that.. my next design was going to use infineon's gate driver IC but i'm having hard time finding available one-off for prototype purpose.

 

[schmitt trigger]

I think that Mr. Cool nailed it. A 100 HP VFD controller will cost thousands of dollars, and usually they are located in mission-critical applications, used 24/7.
If you have downtime because of a faulty controller, you'll get a very irate customer.