A novel snapback-free reverse conducting IGBT with anti-parallel Shockley diode

A novel reverse-conducting insulated gate bipolar transistor (RC-IGBT) with anti-parallel Shockley diode is proposed. By introducing an additional isolated p-n junction at the anode, the effect of anode-short is eliminated, and accordingly, the snapback problem is solved in the novel RC-IGBT. The snapback-free characteristics can be realized in a single cell with a width of less than 10 μm. Besides, the conduction voltages are significantly reduced and the distributions of minority carrier and of current are more uniform than the conventional RC-IGBT, in both the forward and the reverse conduction states. The tradeoff between E_off and V_on in the forward operation case and the tradeoff between Q_rr and V_on in the reverse operation case are both optimized in this paper.