Patent ID: 8569117

Claim:
A method of manufacturing both a thyristor and also a high-current diode on a single semiconductor die, comprising: forming a heavily-doped first-conductivity-type region at a front surface of the semiconductor die, both in a thyristor location and also simultaneously in a diode location; forming trenches into the semiconductor die, both in the thyristor location and also simultaneously in the diode location; insulating said trenches; forming a second-conductivity-type base region, in said thyristor location but not in said diode location, which forms a junction with underlying first-conductivity-type semiconductor material at a depth which is deeper than said trenches; forming a second-conductivity-type body region, in at least said diode location, which forms a junction with said underlying first-conductivity-type semiconductor material at a depth which is not significantly deeper than the bottoms of said trenches; after the insulating step, forming a first gate electrode inside said trenches in the thyristor location, and forming a second gate electrode which is not connected to said first gate electrode inside said trenches in the diode location; forming a heavily-doped first-conductivity-type backside contact region beneath said diode location, and a heavily-doped second-conductivity-type backside contact region beneath said thyristor location; and forming a first metallic layer which connects to said heavily-doped first-conductivity-type region in both the thyristor location and diode location, and forming a second metallic layer which connects to both said heavily-doped first-conductivity-type backside contact region and also to said heavily-doped second-conductivity-type backside contact region.