Tolerance Against Terrestrial Neutron-Induced Single-Event Burnout in SiC MOSFETs

Author

Asai, Hiroki ; Nashiyama, Isamu ; Sugimoto, Kazuya ; Shiba, Kazutoshi ; Sakaide, Yasuo ; Ishimaru, Yasuo ; Okazaki, Yasuo ; Noguchi, Keisuke ; Morimura, Tetsuro

Author_Institution

High-Reliability Eng. & Components Corp. (HIREC), Tsukuba, Japan

Volume

61

Issue

6

fYear

2014

fDate

Dec. 2014

Firstpage

3109

Lastpage

3114

Abstract

SEB tolerance of SiC power MOSFETs against terrestrial neutrons is studied. It is shown that the failure probability increases exponentially with applied voltage and is several orders of magnitude lower than that of a Si MOSFET. The energetic secondary carbon atoms generated by the nuclear reactions and the collisions between the terrestrial neutrons and the lattice atoms of SiC devices may play important role in the SEB triggering mechanism in SiC power devices.

Keywords

neutrons; power MOSFET; radiation hardening (electronics); silicon compounds; wide band gap semiconductors; SEB tolerance; SEB triggering mechanism; SiC; SiC devices; SiC power MOSFET; failure probability; lattice atoms; nuclear reactions; secondary carbon atoms; terrestrial neutron-induced single-event burnout; terrestrial neutrons; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; MOSFET; MOSFET circuits; Neutrons; Silicon; Silicon carbide; Insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT); Schottky barrier diode (SBD); power MOSFET; power device; silicon carbide (SiC); single-event burnout (SEB); spallation neutron; terrestrial neutron;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2014.2371892

Filename

6969834