Patent ID: 8716792

Claim:
A semiconductor device with a charge carrier compensation structure in a semiconductor body comprising: a cell field with drift zones of a first type of conductivity and charge carrier compensation zones of a type of conductivity complementary to the first type of conductivity; an edge region which surrounds the cell field; and wherein the edge region includes a near-surface area being undoped to more weakly doped than the drift zones, wherein beneath the near-surface area at least one buried, vertically extending, complementarily doped zone is positioned, and wherein an epitaxy layer forming a lateral buried field stop zone is positioned on an upper side of a substrate, wherein the buried field stop zone has an n − -conducting type of dopant concentration which is lower than the dopant concentration of subsequent epitaxy layers of the drift zones and lower than the dopant concentration of the substrate, wherein a lateral field stop zone running upwards along a semiconductor chip edge from the buried field stop zone to a front-sided surface of the semiconductor body includes a dopant concentration of the drift zones, wherein the near surface area extends in a distance between the upwards running field stop zone and the cell field, and wherein a Variable Lateral Dopant structure (VLD structure) is arranged in a transitional region from the cell field into the edge region.