Title :
Power MOSFET failure revisited
Author :
Blackburn, David L.
Author_Institution :
NBS, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
Abstract :
The failure of power MOSFETs during avalanche breakdown is discussed. A theory is presented that relates the failure to the temperature rise of the chip during the avalanche breakdown and to a critical current for failure. It is shown that the energy that can be safely dissipated during avalanche breakdown decreases as the starting current increases or as the case temperature increases. Thus, if power MOSFETs are to be rated for their energy dissipation capability during avalanche breakdown, both the starting current and temperature must be specified, since it is these two parameters that determine the failure limits, and not the energy.
Keywords :
failure analysis; insulated gate field effect transistors; power transistors; MOSFET failure analysis; avalanche breakdown; critical current; energy dissipation capability; power MOSFET; starting current; temperature rise; Avalanche breakdown; Bipolar transistors; Breakdown voltage; Critical current; Energy dissipation; Immune system; MOSFET circuits; NIST; Power MOSFET; Temperature;
Conference_Titel :
Power Electronics Specialists Conference, 1988. PESC '88 Record., 19th Annual IEEE
Conference_Location :
Kyoto, Japan
DOI :
10.1109/PESC.1988.18196
