Enhancement of the Electrical Safe Operating Area of Integrated DMOS Transistors With Respect to High-Energy Short Duration Pulses

The influence of the source/body layout on the electrical safe operating area (SOA) of both vertical and lateral double-diffused metal-oxide-semiconductor transistors is experimentally investigated using a transmission line pulse system. Tradeoff between
R
_DSon
·Area and SOA is discussed. Stripe geometries with and without (i.e., conventional design) body contact extension and cell designs with circular and oval geometries are considered. It is shown that a circular design of the source/body cell is superior with respect to SOA, compared with the conventional stripe design. The oval design is used to improve
R
_DSon
·Area without compromising SOA performance, compared with the circular design.