Field Plate Engineering for Free Metal Routing over Lateral HV Devices

This work reports on novel field plate structures, aimed at protecting large-area lateral HV devices from overlying metal layers. This gives freedom to IC design regarding metal routing on top of power devices and isolation structures in Power Integrated Circuits (PICs), in particular for voltages exceeding 150V. These field plates maintain or even enhance HV device characteristics. The method is applicable to any high voltage supporting lateral structure including drift regions and termination regions of lateral and even vertical HV devices.