Assessment of Junction Termination Extension Structures For Ultrahigh-Voltage Silicon Carbide Pin-Diodes; A Simulation Study

• Main Authors: Daniel Johannesson, Muhammad Nawaz, Hans-Peter Nee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2021-01-01
• Series: IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics
• Subjects: 4H-SiC device; JTE structure; junction termination extension design; PiN Diode; ultrahigh-voltage device; wide bandgap device
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9400718/

The junction termination extension (JTE) structures for ultrahigh-voltage (UHV) devices consumes a considerable part of the semiconductor chip area. The JTE area is closely related to chip performance, process yield and ultimately device cost. The JTE lengths for UHV devices (i.e., > 30 kV) are still unknown, not visible in the scientific literature and have therefore been predicted in this study by means of two-dimensional numerical simulations using the Sentaurus based technology computer-aided design (TCAD) tool. A previously reported space-modulated, two-zone JTE (SM-JTE) structure has been used as an input to set up a suitable TCAD model, which is further scaled to JTE lengths required for 40 kV class and 50 kV class SiC PiN diodes. The simulation results indicate that the SM-JTE requires an 1800 μm one-sided JTE length with 27 guard rings for a 40 kV theoretical PiN diode and 2700 μm with 36 guard rings for a 50 kV device, resulting in breakdown voltages of 41.4 kV and 51.7 kV, respectively. Moreover, the design considerations of different JTE categories are discussed with focus on the adaptability of the termination structures in ultrahigh-voltage devices, e.g., V_B > 30 kV, which results in a comparison of the SM-JTE structure with other high-voltage JTE designs.