onsemi announced their collaboration to meet the high demand for DC string optimizers. Ampt uses onsemi's N-Channel SiC MOSFET, part of the EliteSiC family of silicon carbide (SiC) technologies, in its DC string optimizers for critical power switching applications. Ampt string optimizers are used in large-scale PV power plants, enabling lower-cost and higher performing solar and DC-coupled energy storage systems that are collocated within the solar power plant.

The string optimizers deliver power from the PV array at a high and fixed voltage for system voltages ranging from 600 to 1500 VDC, reducing the overall current requirements and cost of the power plant. Ampt optimizers enable higher round-trip – charging and discharging – efficiency in the energy storage system and solar power plant by leveraging onsemi's latest SiC MOSEFT technology with lowest ON resistance and switching loses. The EliteSiC device offers an RDS(on) of 80 m? nominally and a low gate charge (Qg) value of 56 nC along with lower Rg of 1.7Ohms. It is capable of operating at junction temperatures of 175°C, reducing the thermal management requirements in applications, resulting in smaller, lower cost solutions.