Residential heat pumps
Smart residential heat pump systems with sensing, control, and connectivity
The first heat pump was installed in the first half of the 20th century. So the concept of using energy from the environment to heat and cool is nothing new. But modern heat pumps are much more efficient, smaller and of course smarter than its predecessors.With the commitment to reducing CO2 emissions, traditional heating systems like gas and oil boilers must be replaced with more sustainable ones such as heat pumps. Heat pumps essentially use a motor drive that operates a compressor to convert electricity into heat in the vapor-compression cycle. The heat from the environment is transferred to the refrigerant cycle using a fan (air type) or a pump (water and ground type). To make use of that heat, a heat exchanger transfers it to the hydronic heating system via a circulation pump. All components, circulation pump, fan, and compressor, are operated by a motor drive to increase energy efficiency and reduce losses. Furthermore, the state-of-the-art heat pump is connected to the smart home and can be easily controlled via a touch screen. Connectivity, both to the smart home and the internet, will play an important role in enabling the energy transition. The smart grid will be essential to handle the large number of heat pumps that will be connected to the grid. Using the heat pump as a means to store energy via the water tank is an important method of balancing loads and saving money.
Infineon's solutions bring more intelligence and efficiency to modern heat pumps: Achieve the highest efficiency levels and the smallest form factors using our smartest power designs. We offer a comprehensive portfolio of single- and three-phase solutions across all power classes, making it easy for you to choose the most suitable solution for your heat pump. CIPOS™ IPMs and Easy Modules are the best solutions for highly integrated compressor drives. Discrete solutions such as our Discrete IGBT are the best choice when layout flexibility and thermal performance optimization are your major concern. They can all be combined with iMOTION™ motor controllers with its code-free Motion Control Engine, containing the relevant algorithms for heat pumps such as high pressure start-up and vibration suppression at low speed . EiceDRIVER™ gate driver ICs offer a comprehensive product portfolio with a variety of configurations to drive a broad range of power switches (IGBTs, MOSFETs, SiC MOSFETs, and GaN HEMTs).Power Factor Correction (PFC) is another important building block to increase efficiency. Again, Infineon offers you all design degrees of freedom with it IGBTs, diodes, EiceDRIVER™ gate driver ICs, CIPOS™ IPMs and Easy Modules.
The combination of PSoC™ microcontrollers for system control, AIROC™ Wi-Fi & BT Combo products, and XENSIV™ sensors enable highly innovative and easy-to-design systems with a rich user interface. For the auxiliary power supply, the CoolSET™ rounds up our power portfolio by offering increased robustness and performance.
CIPOS™ Intelligent Power Modules (IPMs) are highly integrated, compact power modules designed to drive motors in applications ranging from home appliances, fans, and pumps to general-purpose drives. They are divided into the compact, standard, and performance families: CIPOS™ Nano, CIPOS ™ Micro, CIPOS™ Tiny, CIPOS ™ Mini, and CIPOS™ Maxi, with different semiconductors in different packages and different voltage and current classes. These energy-efficient intelligent power modules integrate the latest power semiconductor and IC technology.
Infineon's latest generation of fixed frequency CoolSET™ AC-DC integrated power stages with a quasi-resonant switching scheme offers increased robustness and excellent performance. Infineon's fixed frequency CoolSET™ offers higher efficiency and lower switching frequency at medium and light loads, enabled by an integrated frequency step-down.
PSoC® 6 microcontrollers (MCUs) bridge the gap between expensive, power-hungry application processors and low integration microcontrollers. The ultra-low-power PSoC® 6 MCU features an Arm® Cortex® M4 for high-performance AI/ML tasks such as _FP match algorithm, TFT LCD driver, voice recognition and motor control, and an Arm® Cortex® M0+ for low power tasks System control, BLE, Capsense or security processing. With built-in security, your IoT system is protected. The built-in Capsense technology allows you to easily implement robust touch control of buttons or displays.
Our AIROC™ Wi-Fi & Combos integrate IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax WLAN and Bluetooth® 5.x in a single-chip solution to enable small-form-factor IoT designs for long-range connectivity. The combo solutions are available for both 1x1 SISO with up to 600 Mbps PHY data rates and 2x2 MIMO with up to 1.2 Gbps PHY data rates. These solutions can be coupled with external MCUs from popular vendors or Linux on application processors to implement a complete Wi-Fi + Bluetooth® system.
Predictive maintenance enables a data-driven approach to predicting and preventing device failures based on pattern recognition and intelligent software models. To collect the necessary data and enable monitoring of the condition of devices in a building, smart XENSIV™ sensors help to record the most crucial parameters of a device's status.
Responding to a growing focus on embedded systems amongst attackers, Infineon offers OPTIGA™ Trust hardware security solutions based on a high-end security controller optimized for connected devices. It provides extremely flexible, high-performance, and secured access to any major cloud provider.
Our EiceDRIVER™ gate driver IC solutions are the expert's choice for three-phase drivers to control power devices like MOSFETs or IGBTs in a three-phase topology. We provide three-phase gate driver ICs with advanced Infineon silicon on insulator (SOI) technologies. With excellent ruggedness and noise immunity, these gate drivers are perfect for motor drives, home appliances, and heat pumps.
Podcast4Engineers: Home Appliances
Smartification and electrification aren’t just limited to our smartphones and computers anymore; these trends are steadily making their way into our home appliances and the market is booming. But what technologies are driving home appliance innovation and how do semiconductors play a role?
Listen to our latest podcasts to learn more about home appliances and how Infineon technology is powering the smart home of tomorrow.
This training gives an overview of the heat pump system, its market potential, and the recommended Infineon technical solutions to implement efficient heat pump systems.
In this training, you will get to know more about the system trends and the components that Infineon offers as solutions for your home appliances.
Webinars
The heat pump market is heating up. For several years already, heat pumps have been a critical part of the green energy transition. Yet, current geopolitical tensions and unpredictable oil and gas prices have further pushed this technology to the forefront. Infineon's decades of experience in HVAC and air conditioning provides the foundation for its comprehensive semiconductor solutions for heat pumps. From power control and connectivity to HMI and sensing, this webinar will show how technical solutions like wide bandgap and IGBT can combine with smart metering and predictive analytics for even better heat pump designs.
We review power devices enabling efficient designs, meeting energy regulations & enabling software-based smart functions.
