Electro-thermal instability in low voltage power MOS: Experimental characterization

In this paper, we present experimental results of dynamic thermal mapping on a new class of low voltage high current power MOSFETs. The reported results underline that, as in the case of power BJTs, the hot-spot phenomenon also occurs in this class of devices. Moreover, we give a theoretical interpretation of this phenomenon and propose a novel approach to understand the causes that can determine the temperature instabilities in such MOS devices.