A New Degradation Mechanism in High-Voltage SiC Power MOSFETs

Author

Agarwal, Anant ; Fatima, Husna ; Haney, Sarah ; Ryu, Sei-Hyung

Author_Institution

Cree Inc., Durham

Volume

28

Issue

7

fYear

2007

fDate

7/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

587

Lastpage

589

Abstract

The phenomenon of recombination-induced stacking faults in high-voltage p-n diodes in SiC has been previously shown to increase the forward voltage drop due to reduction of minority carrier lifetime. In this paper, it has been shown that, for the first time, this effect is equally important in unipolar devices such as high-voltage MOSFETs. If the internal body diode is allowed to be forward biased during the operation of these devices, then the recombination-induced SFs will reduce the majority carrier conduction current and increase the leakage current in blocking mode. The effect is more noticeable in high-voltage devices where the drift layer is thick and is not expected to impact 600-1200-V devices.

Keywords

power MOSFET; power semiconductor diodes; silicon compounds; stacking faults; wide band gap semiconductors; SiC; carrier conduction current; degradation mechanism; high-voltage SiC power MOSFET; high-voltage p-n diodes; internal body diode; leakage current; minority carrier lifetime; recombination-induced stacking faults; unipolar devices; voltage 600 V to 1200 V; voltage drop; Charge carrier lifetime; Degradation; Electron mobility; Leakage current; MOSFETs; Schottky diodes; Silicon carbide; Spontaneous emission; Stacking; Voltage; Dislocations; electron mobility; power MOSFETs; reliability; silicon carbide; stacking faults (SFs);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2007.897861

Filename

4252184