AN1703 - APPLICATION NOTE

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10. PowerSO-10™

Surface mounting packages, by their very nature are restricted to smaller footprints. Power devices need

larger footprints to dissipate heat. PowerSO-10 is an optimized balance between these two conflicting

requirements. Figure 26 shows PowerSO-10 with its minimum recommended footprint.

Figure 26: PowerSO-10™ package and its minimum recommended footprint (all dimensions are in

mm)

A 10-pin DIP package was manufactured also for use in intelligent power devices, which require many

leads. Discrete can use high pin count packages to distribute the current through the power circuit.

of the PowerSO-10 height results in about a 37% decrease in total volume of the package, while the

spreader area remains large. Not only does this result in a lower package cost, but also from a high

frequency standpoint, low height and less inductance are two big advantages.

The use of epoxy FR-4 boards is quite common in through-hole techniques; for surface mounting

techniques, however, its poor thermal conduction means that it is not possible to benefit from the

outstanding thermal performance of PowerSO-10. One way to improve the thermal conduction is the use

of large heat spread areas at the copper layer of the PC board. This leads to a reduction of thermal