On the use of Po210 and Am241 collimated alpha sources for the characterization of the onset of carrier multiplication in power devices
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Date
2020
Publication Type
Conference Paper
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yes
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Abstract
The design of robust power devices and the
definition of their safe operating area require the quantitative
characterization of charge multiplication in reverse biased
junctions. This is mandatory especially for those mechanisms
like single event burnout, where the failure is triggered by the
massive impact ionization arising in the reverse-biased device
from the charge generated by the impinging ionizing radiation,
transported and eventually multiplied. Traditional DC
characterization techniques exhibit usually limited sensitivity,
such that they are not capable to detect the reverse current and
the related charge multiplication before the occurrence of the
junction breakdown. In the past, alternative methods aimed to
improve the sensitivity at lower electric fields have been
proposed that exploit either optical, or particle beams. However,
these solutions cannot be simply applied to real commercial
devices and in addition they just deliver averaged values of the
multiplication factor. In this paper, single ionization events
generated at the close vicinity of the reverse-biased junction of
a commercial power PiN diode are acquired to measure the
distribution of the multiplication factor at different reverse bias
conditions. Here, the fast reverse current pulse produced by the
initial ionization charge burst is collected by a dedicated
spectrometry chain and processed to obtain the probability
distribution of the current pulses and the related multiplication
factor. This analysis accounts for the stochastic nature of the
initial charge generation, as well as of the impact ionization
process. The measurements results are compared with the
multiplication values and distributions as obtained by TCAD,
analytical models and by Monte Carlo simulation. The
performance of two different exempt quantity alpha sources is
investigated, namely Polonium (Po210) and Americium (Am241)
that are used in conjunction with dedicated collimators. The
technique is demonstrated based on a commercial 1.2 kV-70 A
power PiN diode in the reverse bias range from 700 V to 1250 V.
Detailed information is provided about the proposed hardware
solutions, which can easily be implemented under usual
laboratory conditions.
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Publication status
published
Editor
Book title
Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, IPFA
Journal / series
Volume
Pages / Article No.
9260952
Publisher
IEEE
Event
27th IEEE International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits (IPFA 2020) (cancelled)
Edition / version
Methods
Software
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Date collected
Date created
Subject
Impact ionization; Carrier multiplication; Impact ionization coefficient extraction; Collimated alpha source; Polonium-210; Americium.241; Detection circuitry
Organisational unit
03925 - Luisier, Mathieu / Luisier, Mathieu