15 kV SiC PiN diodes achieve 95% of avalanche limit and stable

15 kV SiC PiN diodes achieve 95% of avalanche limit
and stable long-term operation
Siddarth Sundaresan, Madhuri Marripelly, Svetlana Arshavsky, Ranbir Singh
GeneSiC Semiconductor Inc.
Dulles, VA 20166, USA
email: [email protected]
Abstract— This paper reports on ultra-high voltage, >15 kV SiC
PiN rectifiers exhibiting >95% of the avalanche rating and 115
V/µm. This is one of a few reports on > 15 kV blocking voltages
measured on any single semiconductor device, and the highest
percentage of the avalanche limit ever reported on devices
fabricated on > 100 µm thick SiC epilayers. Excellent stability of
on-state voltage drop (VF) is displayed by 5.76 mm2 and largearea, 41 mm2 PiN rectifiers, when continually biased at high
current densities for several days. The impact of carrier lifetime
on the device performance for SiC bipolar devices with ultrathick (≥100 µm) base layers is investigated by comparing I-V-T
characteristics of SiC PiN rectifiers fabricated on 100 µm and
130 µm thick epilayers.
I.
packages for detailed high-current, switching and long-term
measurements.
III.
BLOCKING VOLTAGE MEASUREMENTS
The onset of sharp avalanche breakdown at 15 kV (Figure
1) is observed on several PiN rectifiers, with extremely lowleakage currents preceding the breakdown voltage. The
achievement of 15 kV blocking voltages corresponds to 115
V/µm and 95% of the avalanche breakdown limit for the 130
µm thick n- epilayer, calculated by direct integration of the
4H-SiC impact ionization co-efficients [1].
INTRODUCTION
At 10 kV – 20 kV voltage ratings, 4H-SiC PiN rectifiers
offer the best trade-off between on-state voltage drop,
switching losses and high-temperature performance as
compared to Si PiN or SiC Schottky/JBS rectifiers. These
ultra-high voltage SiC PiN rectifiers are being developed as
companion free-wheeling diodes for GeneSiC’s future product
portfolio of 10-15 kV SiC transistors. This paper reports on
detailed results from experimental on-state, blocking and longterm reliability characterization performed on SiC PiN
rectifiers fabricated on 130 µm thick n- epilayers.
II.
EXPERIMENTAL
SiC PiN rectifiers with 2.4 mm x 2.4 mm chip size (active
area = 5.76 mm2) and 6.4 mm x 6.4 mm chip size (active area
= 41 mm2) were fabricated on 130 µm thick, 6-7 x 1014 cm-3
doped n- 4H-SiC epilayers. The p+ emitter layers were 1.5 µm
thick and doped to 1 x 1019 cm-3. Optimized edge termination
for the PiN rectifiers was provided by a combination of
GeneSiC-pioneered beveled mesa etching and p-type ionimplantation followed by high-temperature annealing for
implant activation. Ohmic contacts to the p+ Anode and n+
Cathode layers was formed by Al-based and Ni- based
metallization. Thick Al overlayers were deposited on the top
and a solderable Au-based metallization was provided on the
bottom for die-attaching to Cu baseplates. After on-wafer
testing, selected die were assembled in custom- designed
The funding from US Dept. of Energy under the Advanced Research
Project Agency (ARPA-E) award # DE-AR0000112 and the support of Dr.
Timothy Heidel is gratefully acknowledged
Figure 1. 15 kV blocking voltages measured on several PiN diodes
fabricated on 130 µm thick, 6x1014 cm-3 doped n- SiC epilayers, which
corresponds to >95% of the avalanche breakdown limit.
IV.
ON-STATE CHARACTERISTICS
An on-state voltage drop (VF) of 6 V and differential onresistance of 15.5 mΩ-cm2 are measured on the 5.76 mm2
rectifiers (Figure 2a) at 100 A/cm2 and 25 °C, which reduce to
4 V and 8 mΩ-cm2, respectively, at 225 °C. Likewise, the 41
mm2 rectifiers also exhibit a negative temperature co-efficient
of VF (at 10 A) and ron,sp (Figure 2b) – 4.1 V and 25.5 mΩ-cm2
at 25 °C; 3.3 V and 9.9 mΩ-cm2 at 175 °C. The negative
temperature co-efficient of VF measured on both the 5.76 mm2
and 41 mm2 PiN rectifiers is due to increasing high-level
carrier lifetime (tHL) and the reduction of the built-in voltage at
higher temperatures. The larger on-resistance recorded on the
41 mm2 rectifiers could be due to the less-effective vertical
current spreading, and higher parasitic top metal spreading
resistance.
microwave photoconductive decay (µ-PCD), this suggests that
the carrier lifetimes in the 130 µm thick SiC epilayers
although high by 4H-SiC standards, are not sufficient for
complete conductivity modulation of the entire thickness of
the drift region. A first order estimate for the minimum carrier
lifetime (tHL) for complete conductivity modulation of an ntype 4H-SiC base layer can be expressed as:
tHL = d2/4Da
(1)
where d is the base layer thickness and Da is the ambipolar
diffusion co-efficient, which can be easily derived using the
electron and hole mobilities for 4H-SiC for the particular
doping concentration of the n- epilayer. Plugging in electron
and hole mobilities [3] of 800 cm2/Vs and 80 cm2/Vs to
calculate Da in (1), the minimum required tHL can be
calculated as 5 µs for a 90 µm thick n- epilayer, while it
increases to 11.5 µs for a 130 µm thick epilayer. OCVD
measurements on PiN rectifiers fabricated on 90 µm thick
epilayers [2] showed that tHL increased from 4.5 µs at 25°C to
14 µs at 225°C, which can explain the drastic decrease in the
ron,sp measured on the 130 µm PiN rectifiers at elevated
temperatures. These results suggest that for optimum
conductivity modulation of the ultra-thick (> 100 µm) SiC
epilayers that are necessary for > 10 kV device fabrication,
epi-growth or processing strategies for increasing the (roomtemperature) tHL above 10 µs need to be pursued. The carrier
lifetime enhancement by the deep level reduction (DLR)
process proposed in [4] is one alternative to increase the
carrier lifetime during device processing. These approaches
will be the subject of future investigations at GeneSiC.
Figure 2. Forward bias I-V-T characteristics measured on (Top,a): 5.76
mm2 PiN rectifiers and (Bottom,b): 41 mm2 PiN rectifiers, both fabricated on
130 µm thick/6e1014 cm-3 doped n- epilayers. For comparison, the 25°C and
175°C forward bias characteristics previously reported on 41 mm2 rectifiers
fabricated on 85 µm epilayers are also shown in (b).
The temperature variation of ron,sp for these 130 µm PiN
rectifiers are compared in Fig. 2 with the results reported
earlier [2] on PiN rectifiers fabricated on 90 µm thick SiC
epilayers. Significantly lower on-resistance and a much softer
temperature dependence of ron,sp is observed in Fig. 3 for the
PiN rectifiers fabricated on 90 µm thick SiC epilayers, as
compared to the 15 kV rectifiers reported in this article. The
on-resistance of a PiN rectifier is a function of the extent of
conductivity modulation of the n- drift layer. Since very
similar values (≈ 5 µs) of carrier lifetime were recorded on
both the 90 µm and 130 µm thick SiC epiwafers by
Figure 3. Temperature dependence of differential specific on-resistance in
the range of 0.7-0.8 A, for 5.76 mm2 PiN rectifiers fabricated on 90 µm and
130 µm thick n- epilayers
V.
FORWARD BIAS DRIFT STABILITY
One of the remaining bottlenecks for the
commercialization of SiC bipolar devices is the basal plane
dislocation (BPD) related drift of the on-state voltage drop,
when biased continuously under forward bias conditions. We
have previously reported [2] drift-free operation of SiC PiN
rectifiers fabricated on 90 µm thick epilayers. In this work,
representative 5.76 mm2 and 41 mm2 PiN rectifiers after
packaging in special test coupons were subjected to
continuous operation at forward bias current densities of 100
A/cm2 (0.8 A) and 40 A/cm2 (10 A) for 90 hours and 55 hours,
respectively, at a controlled base plate temperature of 25°C.
As shown in Fig. 4, after an initial stabilization of 5-10 hours,
the VF of these PiN rectifiers displays excellent stability
within 10 mV for the remainder of the duration of the test.
The exact reasons for the contrasting trends shown by the 5.76
mm2 and 41 mm2 rectifiers during the initial stabilization
period is unknown at this time. We did not observe any such
stabilization period during our previous study on 90 µm PiN
rectifiers.
Figure 4. Evolution of on-state voltage drop (VF) for the 5.76 mm2 and 41
mm2, 15 kV SiC PiN rectifiers under DC current stress of 0.8 A (100 A/cm2)
and 10 A (40 A/cm2), respectively. After an initial period of 5-10 hours, the
VF exhibits excellent stability for the remainder of the test duration.
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