Papers by Keyword: Device Degradation

Abstract: Based on the analysis of the defect formation in silicon carbide polytypes in different semiconductor manufacturing processing steps, device operation and environmental-device interaction it is concluded that external material and energy fluxes are generally able to destabilize the polytype structure. The governing reason is the formation of stacking faults and instabilities of the partial dislocation associated with them. A new ansatz is proposed to describe the structural instabilities using none-equilibrium thermodynamics and the entropy production. A criterial form for polyype transitions is proposed. The developed criterial form is applied to describe observed structural instabilities occur­ring under different external actions.