High power, drift-free 4H-SiC PiN diodes

The path to commercializing a 4H-SiC power PiN diode has faced many difficult challenges. In this work, we report a 50 A, 10 kV 4H-SiC PiN diode technology where good crystalline quality and high carrier lifetime of the material has enabled a high yielding process with V/sub F/ as low as 3.9 V @ 100 A/cm/sup 2/. These 10 kV diodes demonstrate pulsed current handling capability up to 328 A which represents over 3 MW of pulsed power. Furthermore, incorporation of two independent basal plane dislocation reduction processes (LBPD 1 and LBPD 2) have produced a large number of devices that exhibit a high degree of forward voltage stability. The more benign LBPD 2 process yields wafers with better reverse blocking capability resulting in a total yield (forward, 10 kV blocking, and drift) of >20% for 8.7 mm /spl times/ 8.7 mm power PiN diode chips - the largest SiC chip reported to date.