A radiation induced failure mechanism for power semiconductor devices

A failure mechanism is proposed which accounts satisfactorily for a recently discovered definitive electric short circuit between the operating power device main terminals, caused by a high energy charged particle. When such a particle crosses the space charge region of a device silicon PN junction which is reverse biased near to the avalanche breakdown voltage value, an instantaneous decrease of this value is possible and the junction may enter into a second breakdown condition, followed by its catastrophic failure.