Incorporating several changes in its semiconductor process to cut costs, Zowie Technology Corp. has introduced a glass-passivated rectifier chip (GPRC) technology as a direct competitor to GPR (Sintered Glass Passivation Rectifier). GPRC touts an increase in current-handling performance and packaging options.

The patented GPRC technology, which eliminates a stress buffer normally needed and entirely glass-passivates the chip's peripheral surfaces, has evolved over 30 years from the two major types of passivation. Passivation protects the P-N junction from environmental damage and maintains high breakdown voltage.

One type of passivation is the epoxy-over-molded GPR, and the popular GPP, a glass-passivated pellet sealed by glass around its open junction. The epoxy-over-molded GPR's excellent performance is acknowledged, but it is limited to an axial-lead configuration. By contrast, GPP devices are easily assembled into many types of packages and have more applications, but are considered to be limited in performance and reliability.

GPRC's approach does away with the relatively expensive, so-called "Molybsulg" used as a stress buffer in GPRs to accommodate the differences in thermal expansion between silicon die and metal leads. The new approach provides much higher-current capability than GPR's glass-passivated structure and removes the restrictions on packaging options as well. Moreover, GPRC's assembly is as easy as GPP's; yet, GPRC has much better assembly yield.