A Novel Snapback-Free Reverse-Conducting IGBT with Si/SiC Heterojunction

A novel high performance snapback-free reverse-conducting insulated gate bipolar transistor with silicon/silicon carbide (Si/SiC) heterojunction (HJ-RC-IGBT) is proposed for the first time. The formed heterojunction in the collector for the proposed structure cuts off the current flow path of the internal parasitic MOSFET in the IGBT mode. The simulation results show that similar as the conventional FS-IGBT, a snapback-free current-voltage (I-V) characteristics is achieved without using a large p-collector width. Therefore, compared to the conventional RC-IGBT and FS-IGBT, the tradeoff relationship between the on-state voltage drop $(V_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{e}(\mathrm{o}\mathrm{n})})$ and turn-off loss $(E_{\mathrm{o}\mathrm{f}\mathrm{f}})$ is improved for the proposed HJ-RC-IGBT. Meanwhile, the distribution of current and carriers are uniform for the proposed HJ-RC-IGBT in both IGBT and diode modes, which improves the device reliability.