| The focus of this work was to propose, study and fabricate new and improved power devices which incorporate buried oxide layers in them. In this work four new vertical power device structures; the SIMEST, the SIMBRT, SIMFCT and the CRMGT, were proposed. In the proposed SIMEST, SIMFCT and CRMGT structures, the parasitic thyristor associated with the IGBT and EST is eliminated by isolating the lateral N-channel MOSFET from the vertical thyristor section by a buried oxide island obtained by means of oxygen implantation. As a result these devices have a larger Safe Operating Area (SOA) when compared to the IGBT and the EST. In the SIMBRT, the turn-off MOSFET of the BRT is isolated from the vertical thyristor by a buried oxide island, in order to obtain lower on-state losses and larger maximum controllable current densities when compared to the conventional BRT.; Extensive two-dimensional numerical simulations were performed to verify and optimize the performance of the proposed devices. Using these simulation results, unit cell devices were designed using a 3 {dollar}mu{dollar}m minimum feature size design rule. A 9 mask 250 step SIMOX Smart Power process was developed in order to fabricate these improved power devices. The fabricated devices were characterized and their principle of device operation was experimentally verified. Effects of temperature and lifetime control (electron radiation) on the operation of these devices was evaluated.; Low voltage control elements such as N and P channel MOSFETs, NPN and PNP transistors, and lateral P-i-N diodes were fabricated using the same process. An unique shielding scheme was proposed and implemented in order to shield the low voltage devices from the effects of substrate bias. The low voltage devices were characterized at room and elevated temperatures. The shielding mechanism was verified by characterizing the devices under substrate bias conditions. |
