- Models and Simulations of Diamond-like Carbon for large-area high voltage power diodes
- Balestra, Luigi <1994>
Subject
- ING-INF/01 Elettronica
Description
- Silicon-based discrete high-power devices need to be designed with optimal performance up to several thousand volts and amperes to reach power ratings ranging from few kWs to beyond the 1 GW mark. To this purpose, a key element is the improvement of the junction termination (JT) since it allows to drastically reduce surface electric field peaks which may lead to an earlier device failure. This thesis will be mostly focused on the negative bevel termination which from several years constitutes a standard processing step in bipolar production lines. A simple methodology to realize its counterpart, a planar JT with variation of the lateral doping concentration (VLD) will be also described. On the JT a thin layer of a semi insulating material is usually deposited, which acts as passivation layer reducing the interface defects and contributing to increase the device reliability. A thorough understanding of how the passivation layer properties affect the breakdown voltage and the leakage current of a fast-recovery diode is fundamental to preserve the ideal termination effect and provide a stable blocking capability. More recently, amorphous carbon, also called diamond-like carbon (DLC), has been used as a robust surface passivation material. By using a commercial TCAD tool, a detailed physical explanation of DLC electrostatic and transport properties has been provided. The proposed approach is able to predict the breakdown voltage and the leakage current of a negative beveled power diode passivated with DLC as confirmed by the successfully validation against the available experiments. In addition, the VLD JT proposed to overcome the limitation of the negative bevel architecture has been simulated showing a breakdown voltage very close to the ideal one with a much smaller area consumption. Finally, the effect of a low junction depth on the formation of current filaments has been analyzed by performing reverse-recovery simulations.
Date
- 2022-03-15
- info:eu-repo/date/embargoEnd/2025-02-09
Type
- Doctoral Thesis
- PeerReviewed
Format
- application/pdf
Identifier
urn:nbn:it:unibo-28322
Balestra, Luigi (2022) Models and Simulations of Diamond-like Carbon for large-area high voltage power diodes, [Dissertation thesis], Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna. Dottorato di ricerca in Ingegneria elettronica, telecomunicazioni e tecnologie dell'informazione