Patent ID: 8803160

Claim:
A semiconductor device, comprising: a drift zone of a first conductivity type serving as a substrate layer having a front side and a back side, a first contact electrode arranged at the front side of the drift zone, a control region arranged at the front side and controlling an injection of carriers of at least the first conductivity type into the drift zone, and a second contact electrode at the backside of the drift zone, wherein the drift zone is arranged to carry a carrier flow between the first and the second contact electrode, and wherein the drift zone comprises a silicon carbide wafer with a net carrier concentration less than 10 15 cm −3 and a carrier lifetime of at least 50 ns, and wherein the silicon carbide wafer has a surface forming the front side or the back side surface of the drift zone and being off-oriented towards a Miller index direction with an off-axis angle less than 1 degree.