Mechanisms of Channel Current Formation in Silicon P-N Junctions

The physical mechanisms of the formation of channel currents associated with reverse biased P-N junctions are studied in detail. It is demonstrated that a channel characteristic results when a site of very high carrier generation rate is connected by an inversion layer to the P-N junction. Such sites are shown to be due either to a fault associated with the field-induced junction between the inversion layer and underlying silicon, or to the breakdown of this junction.