Investigation and improvement of single-event burn-out in 4H-SiC trench insulated gate bipolar transistors

Abstract

In this paper, the triggering process for single-event burnout (SEB) in conventional 4H-SiC trench insulated gate bipolar transistors (C-TIGBTs) is described. Furthermore, SEB is studied for both a conventional structure and a new structure. The new structure has a Schottky contact at the collector side (S-TIGBT) and is investigated using a 2D numerical-simulation. The simulation results indicate that the Schottky-junction improves the SEB threshold voltage from 4000 V, in the C-TIGBT, to 4600 V, in the S-TIGBT, while the SEB-induced breakdown voltage for 75 MeV/(mg⋅cm−2) is improved by about 15.0%.