(Invited) Development of SiC Schottky-PN Diode with Low on Resistance and High Blocking Voltage
Authors: Kojima Kazutoshi , Okumura Hajime 
Published: February 2020

4H-SiC is a promising material for low-loss, high frequency, and high temperature electronic devices. And nowadays, 4H-SiC Schottky diodes, MOSFETs, and its inverters were used in many applications. As well known, a conduction loss and a switching loss shows tread off relationship on these devices. Schottky diode shows high speed switching action and small recovery current based on its unipolar operation, but high series resistance of drift layer. On the other hand, PiN diode shows low series resistance of drift layer due to its conductivity modulation phenomenon based on the bipolar action. However, it causes an adverse reverse recovery current and limited switching speed.

To break this tread off relationship, Schottky-PN diode structure so-called SPND or SNPD was proposed with a diamond semiconductor [1]. This diode has a structure with a low doped n- or p- drift layer where is sandwiched and completely depleted with Schottky junction and one side PN junction. Under forward bias condition, barrier height of PN junction is reduced and majority carrier was injected into the drift layer completely depleted with Schottky junction. Injected majority carrier drift to Schottky junction without recombining with minority carrier. It means minority carrier dose not contribute to current flow under forward bias. Then, this SPND structure is expected to show both very low on-resistance and high　speed switching action. Under reverse bias condition, blocking voltage is shared throughout the drift layer. However, the diamond semiconductor material is under development and difficult to use production phase. In this study, we demonstrated the possibility of SPND by using 4H-SiC substrate under mass production.

In this study, we grew low doped p-layer on n+ 4H-SiC C-face substrate by using hot-wall chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system with H2-SiH4-C3H8 gas system. Trimethylaluminum (TMA) was used as p-type dopant source. The thickness and doing concentration of grown p- layer is 1.1 μm and 5 x 1014 cm-3. Pt was evaporated in vacuum as Schottky electrode on as grown surface. The diameter of Schottky contact is 1mm. Al was used as ohmic back contact. The schematic cross-sectional structure of fabricated 4H-SiC SPND is shown inset of Figure 1.

Figure 1 shows typical J-V characteristic of fabricated 4H-SiC SPND at room temperature. Good rectifying characteristic was observed. The blocking voltage of 300 V was obtained (Fig. 1(a)). From this result, we estimated dielectric breakdown field value of 2.5 MV/cm which is almost equal to ideal value of 4H-SiC one. On forward bias characteristic, the current raises at 2.2 V and the current density is reached at 1200 A/cm2 at 2.4 V (Fig. 1(b)). From this value, the differential on-resistance was estimated at 0.18 mΩcm2. In this study, we used 4H-SiC substrate with thickness of 200 μm and resistivity of 20 mΩcm. The calculated series on-resistance of 4H-SiC substrate part was estimated as 0.4 mΩcm2. This result means estimated differential on-resistance of 0.18 mΩcm2 is almost the resistance of substrate and the resistance of drift layer dose not contribute to the series resistance. These results mean 4H-SiC SPND structure was realized and its good performance of low on-resistance with high blocking voltage was confirmed. Details will be shown in this presentation.

References

[1] T. Makino et al., Phys. Status Solid A 206, 2086 (2009).

Figure 1