Influence of silicon crystal defects and contamination on the electrical behavior of power devices

Since power devices require a thick electrically active n-type silicon layer with high resistivity and a large area, their electrical characteristics are extremely sensitive to contamination. If heavy metals diffuse into the silicon wafers during the high-temperature steps, an uncontrolled increase...

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Veröffentlicht in:Solid-state electronics 1998-12, Vol.42 (12), p.2187-2197
Hauptverfasser: Schulze, H.-J, Kolbesen, B.O
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Since power devices require a thick electrically active n-type silicon layer with high resistivity and a large area, their electrical characteristics are extremely sensitive to contamination. If heavy metals diffuse into the silicon wafers during the high-temperature steps, an uncontrolled increase in the leakage current and the on-state voltage can be observed. Furthermore, current filamentation and instabilities of the electrical data can occur. It turned out that the optimization of the cleaning processes, high-temperature steps and gettering treatments alone is not sufficient to avoid such effects. It is also important to avoid silicon crystal defects by proper processing. A dramatic increase in the leakage current was correlated with the appearance of silicon defects decorated with heavy metals. As a consequence of the low doping level of the n-base, the blocking voltage and the failure rate due to cosmic radiation are sensitive to contaminating atoms acting as donors.
ISSN:0038-1101
1879-2405
DOI:10.1016/S0038-1101(98)00215-9