12.9 kV SiC PiN Diodes with Low On-State Drops and High Carrier Lifetimes

Abstract:

Sharp avalanche breakdown voltages of 12.9 kV are measured on PiN rectifiers fabricated on 100 µm thick, 3 x 10¹⁴ cm-3 doped n- epilayers grown on n+ 4H-SiC substrates. This equates to a record high 129 V/µm for a > 10 kV device. Optimized epilayer, device design and processing of the SiC PiN rectifiers result in a > 60% blocking yield at 10 kV, ultra-low on-state voltage drop and differential on-resistance of 3.75 V and 3.3 mΩ-cm² at 100 A/cm² respectively. Open circuit voltage decay (OCVD) measured carrier lifetimes in the range of 2-4 µs are obtained at room temperature, which increase to a record high 14 µs at 225 °C. Excellent stability of the forward bias characteristics within 10 mV is observed for a long-term forward biasing of the PiN rectifiers at 100 A/cm2. A PiN rectifier module consisting of five parallel large area 6.4 mm x 6.4 mm 10 kV PiN rectifiers is connected as a free-wheeling diode with a Si IGBT and 1100 V/100 A switching transients are recorded. Data on the current sharing capability of the PiN rectifiers is also presented.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volumes 717-720)
• Pages: 949-952
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.717-720.949
• Online since: May 2012
• Authors: Siddarth G. Sundaresan, Charles Sturdevant, Madhuri Marripelly, Eric Lieser, Ranbir Singh
• Keywords: Breakdown Voltage, High Voltage (HV), OCVD, On-Resistance, SiC PiN Diode, Switching

References

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