Investigation of 1500V Non-Punch Through IGBT Using Carrier Lifetime Control and Anode Engineering

For high power applications, non-punch through (NPT) IGBTs are increasingly employed with a lot of benefits over punch through (PT) IGBTs. However, during switching off transition the lasting tail current significantly contributes to turn-off energy loss, which deteriorates the advantages of the NPT IGBTs especially in soft switching applications. In general, in order to reduce the turn-off energy loss and optimize trade-off performance, injection efficiency is simply controlled, which will only adjust the trade-off performances within a limited range. To generate the trade-off performances in a wider range, the carrier lifetime control as well as the anode engineering is simultaneously applied. In this work, the resultant empirical data for a 1500V NPT IGBT will be investigated. The relevant device issues and their implications will also be discussed for further improvement of NPT IGBTs.