Single-Event Burnout of SiC Junction Barrier Schottky Diode High-Voltage Power Devices

Abstract

Ion-induced degradation and catastrophic failures in high-voltage SiC Junction Barrier Schottky (JBS) power diodes are investigated. Experimental results agree with earlier data showing discrete jumps in leakage current for individual ions, and show that the boundary between leakage current degradation and a single-event-burnout-like effect is a strong function of LET and reverse bias. TCAD simulations show high localized electric fields under the Schottky junction, and high temperatures generated directly under the Schottky contact, consistent with the hypothesis that the ion energy causes eutectic-like intermixture at the metal-semiconductor interface or localized melting of the silicon carbide lattice.Index Terms-Single event effects, heavy ions, silicon carbide, power diodes, junction barrier schottky (JBS) diode, single-event burnout, thermal coefficients of silicon carbide.

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Heavy Ion Induced Defects in SiC Schottky Diodes

“…Even though the temperature recovers after the ion strike, physical modifications of the crystal occur, as evidenced by the changes in the current-voltage characteristics. Simulated temperature effects due to ion and bias also have been reported by Abbate et al [7], [8] and by Witulski et al [6].…”

An SEB Hardened AlGaN/GaN HEMT With Barrier Interlayer

“…where LET, x 0 and T 0 represent the linear energy transfer, the incident position of heavy ion and the initial time of the charge generation, respectively. In this study, the spatial Gaussian function width ω 0 and the temporal Gaussian function width T C are set as 0.05 µm [21] and 2 × 10 −12 s [26], [32], [34], respectively. While, T 0 is set as 1 × 10 −13 s. For simplicity, the device is usually assumed to be irradiated perpendicularly by heavy ion [21], [24]- [26] and penetrated for the worst case.…”

“…In this study, the spatial Gaussian function width ω 0 and the temporal Gaussian function width T C are set as 0.05 µm [21] and 2 × 10 −12 s [26], [32], [34], respectively. While, T 0 is set as 1 × 10 −13 s. For simplicity, the device is usually assumed to be irradiated perpendicularly by heavy ion [21], [24]- [26] and penetrated for the worst case. Depending on the conversion factor of 0.0095 [35], the LET value is 0.6 pC/µm that corresponds to 63.8 MeV • cm 2 /mg for Ta [36], which is in line with in authors' previous work [23].…”

“…2-D device simulator has been extensively used to explore the physical processes of SEB and validate the hardening measures in the study of SEB effects on Si or SiC power devices [24]- [26]. In this paper, numerical simulations are conducted using 2-D TCAD simulator.…”

Ion-Induced Energy Pulse Mechanism for Single-Event Burnout in High-Voltage SiC Power MOSFETs and Junction Barrier Schottky Diodes

“…A natural assumption is that separate mechanisms are also responsible for SEB in SiC power diodes and MOSFETs. However, the data presented in Figure 1 show that 1200 V SiC power MOSFETs and 1200 V JBS diodes from Wolfspeed [9][10][11][12] have the same SEB threshold (bias at which SEB may occur) as a function of ion LET. The devices also show the same degradation threshold (bias at which the device off-state leakage current begins to increase) as a function of ion LET [2,3,6,7].…”