Study Of High Current Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor

As a popular power electronic device, Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) is widely used in regions of high power motor drive, locomotive traction and high-voltage transmission and so on. All of these regions are key sectors of important material production, transportation and energy utilization. So we should not only pursuit the optimization of forward drop and switching loss, but also attach great importance to its reliability.Lateral Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (LIGBT) is known as a promising candidate for Power ICs because of its combination of characteristics of low on-state voltage and high input impedance. However, since the stored charge in the n-drift region needs to be eliminated during the turn-off period, its turn-off time is limited. Shorted-Anode LIGBT (SA-LIGBT) solves the problem between the demands of shorter turn-off time and lower on-state voltage by employing a shorted-anode. Nevertheless, the application of SA-LIGBT is limited because of its negative differential resistance (NDR), which can result in potential reliability and stability issues.Based on the problems of IGBT and SA-LIGBT, the reliability and snap-back are simulated and optimized in this paper:1. Proposing a 3300V,50A Soft Punch Through IGBT (SPT IGBT) device, and using the numerical simulation software Medic to analyze the dynamic failure characteristics in details. And the device is optimized by the method of localized lifetime control. The results shows that the device’s turn-off time decreases from 6725.7ns to 1006.5ns。2. Promoting a novel 3-Dimension SA-LIGBT with P-pillar.3-D numerical tool by Crosslight-APSYS is utilized to help analyzing the trade-off between the on state voltage drop and the switching speed for the snap back free LIGBT. Simulation results show that a new device with P-pillar height of 1μm, width of 12um and length of 20μm can eliminate snap-back and achieve low forward voltage drop of 1.61V and turn off time of 110.3ns, when an identical size conventional LIGBT achieves a forward voltage drop of 1.56V and turn off time of 2.33μs in contrast.