Oxide Reliability of SiC MOS Devices

Silicon carbide possesses excellent material properties for high temperature, high frequency and high power applications. Among all the device structures, MOSFET has advantages such as low gate leakage current, easier device control etc., and therefore highly desirable. However, it has long been a common believe that the gate oxide breakdown reliability is a show-stopper, particularly at high temperature where SiC devices are expected to excel. In this paper, we report that the thermally grown gate oxide on 4H-SiC is intrinsically reliable even at temperature as high as 375degC. We further show that even with the current SiC processing technology, devices with 10 cm
²
active area can still achieve 100-year lifetime @ E < 2.9 MV/cm and 375degC.