Correlation between forward voltage drop and local carrier lifetime for a large area segmented thyristor

The forward voltage drop for individual segments of a large area thyristor has been correlated to the local, bulk carrier lifetime by lifetime mapping of the the wafer after final device processing. The lifetime mapping was performed under high injection conditions using an all-optical technique where carriers were generated by a short YAG laser pulse and the subsequent carrier decay was monitored by an IR laser beam using free carrier absorption. The lateral resolution was ~100 μm. The lifetime map revealed heavily contaminated areas where the lifetime was reduced by more than an order of magnitude. The forward voltage drop for corresponding thyristor segments was high and, for some areas, no stable turn-on could be achieved. Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy characterization of contaminated areas confirmed the lifetime measurement results and suggest that the contamination is most likely due to metal impurities introduced in the first extended-time/high-temperature drive-in of the p-base. Device simulations showed qualitative agreement between the bulk carrier lifetime and the corresponding voltage drop