Integrated Smart Power Circuits Technology, Design and Application

Integrated smart power circuits gain more and more importance, as many segments of microelectronics move towards system integration. The combination of many functions - analog, digital and power - on a single chip enable the design and production of even more miniaturized systems for different applications in the fields of automotive, industrial, telecommunication and electronic data processing. This paper gives an introduction to the available semiconductor technologies, shows some circuit design issues related to the problems of smart power ICs, presents some typical circuit examples and focuses on available real products for different application areas. A discussion of future technical trends under the constraints of extremely price-sensitive markets concludes the paper.