Evaluation of termination techniques for 4H-SiC PiN diodes and trench JFETs

An investigation concerning suitable termination techniques for 4H-SiC trench JFETs is presented. Field plates, p+ floating rings and junction termination extension techniques are used to terminate 1.2kV class PiN diodes. The fabricated PiN diodes evaluated here have a similar design to trench JFETs. Therefore, the conclusions for PiN diodes can be applied to JFET structures as well. Numerical simulations are also used to illustrate the effect of the terminations on the diodes' blocking mode behaviour.

Switching performance of epitaxially grown normally-off 4H-SiC JFET

Static and dynamic behavior of the epitaxially grown dual gate trench 4H-SiC junction field effect transistor (JFET) is investigated. Typical on-state resistance Ron was 6-10mΩcm2 at VGS = 2.5V and the breakdown voltage between the range of 1.5-1.8kV was realized at VGS = -5V for normally-off like JFETs. It was found that the turn-on energy delivers the biggest part of the switching losses. The dependence of switching losses from gate resistor is nearly linear, suggesting that changing the gate resistor, a way similar to Si-IGBT technology, can easily control di/dt and dv/dt. Turn-on losses at 200°C are lower compared to those at 25°C, which indicates the influence of the high internal p-type gate layer resistance. Inductive switching numerical analysis suggested the strong influence of channel doping conditions on the turn-on switching performance. The fast switching normally-off JFET devices require heavily doped narrow JFET channel design. © (2009) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

Effect of hydrogen dilution on the deposition of carbon-rich a-SiC:H films by the electron cyclotron resonance method

The deposition of hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) films from a mixture of silane, acetylene and hydrogen gas using the electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapour deposition (ECR-CVD) process is reported. The variation in the deposition and film characteristics such as the deposition rate, optical band gap and IR absorption as a function of the hydrogen dilution is investigated. The deposition rate increases to a maximum value of about 250 Å min-1 at a hydrogen dilution ratio of about 20 (hydrogen flow (sccm)/acetylene + silane flow (sccm)) and decreases in response to a further increase in the hydrogen dilution. There is no strong dependence of the optical band gap on the hydrogen dilution within the dilution range investigated (10-60) and the optical band gap calculated from the E04 method varied marginally from about 2.85 to 3.17 eV. The room temperature photoluminescence (PL) peak energy and intensity showed a prominent shift to a maximum value of about 2.17 eV corresponding to maximum PL intensity at a moderate hydrogen dilution of about 30. The PL intensity showed a strong dependence on the hydrogen dilution variation.

The temperature dependence of effective thermal conductivity of open-celled steel alloy foams

The effective thermal conductivity of steel alloy FeCrAlY (Fe-20 wt.% Cr-5 wt.% Al-2 wt.% Y-20 wt.%) foams with a range of pore sizes and porosities was measured between 300 and 800 K, under both vacuum and atmospheric conditions. The results show that the effective thermal conductivity increases rapidly as temperature is increased, particularly in the higher temperature range (500-800 K) where the transport of heat is dominated by thermal radiation. The effective conductivity at temperature 800 K can be three times higher than that at room temperature (300 K). Results obtained under vacuum conditions reveal that the effective conductivity increases with increasing pore size or decreasing porosity. The contribution of natural convection to heat conduction was found to be significant, with the effective thermal conductivity at ambient pressure twice the value of vacuum condition. The results also show that natural convection in metal foams is strongly dependent upon porosity. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

High temperature direct double side cooled inverter module for hybrid electric vehicle application

In this paper a novel approach to the design and fabrication of a high temperature inverter module for hybrid electrical vehicles is presented. Firstly, SiC power electronic devices are considered in place of the conventional Si devices. Use of SiC raises the maximum practical operating junction temperature to well over 200°C, giving much greater thermal headroom between the chips and the coolant. In the first fabrication, a SiC Schottky barrier diode (SBD) replaces the Si pin diode and is paired with a Si-IGBT. Secondly, double-sided cooling is employed, in which the semiconductor chips are sandwiched between two substrate tiles. The tiles provide electrical connections to the top and the bottom of the chips, thus replacing the conventional wire bonded interconnect. Each tile assembly supports two IGBTs and two SBDs in a half-bridge configuration. Both sides of the assembly are cooled directly using a high-performance liquid impingement system. Specific features of the design ensure that thermo-mechanical stresses are controlled so as to achieve long thermal cycling life. A prototype 10 kW inverter module is described incorporating three half-bridge sandwich assemblies, gate drives, dc-link capacitance and two heat-exchangers. This achieves a volumetric power density of 30W/cm3.

Raman Spectrum of silicon nanowires

We measure the effects of phonon confinement on the Raman spectra of silicon nanowires (SiNWs). We show how previous reports of phonon confinement in SiNWs and nanostructures are actually inconsistent with phonon confinement, but are due to the intense local heating caused by the laser power used for Raman measurements. This is peculiar to nanostructures, and would require orders of magnitude higher power in bulk Si. By varying the temperature, power and excitation energy, we identify the contributions of pure confinement, heating and carrier photo-excitation. After eliminating laser-related effects, the Raman spectra show confinement signatures typical of quantum wires. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.