A new lateral trench-gate conductivity modulated power transistor

In this paper, a new conductivity modulated power transistor called the Lateral Trench-Gate Bipolar Transistor (LTGBT) is presented. This structure incorporates a trench-gate in which the locations of the channel and source in conventional LIGBT have been interchanged. This channel and source arrangement results in significant improvement in latch-up current density. Experimental results indicate that the static and dynamic latch-up current densities are improved by 2.3 and 4.2 times, respectively, compared to those of the LIGBT at a n/sup +/ cathode length of 5 /spl mu/m. Dependence of the latch-up current density of the LTGBT on the design of the n/sup +/ and p/sup +/ cathode regions is examined both numerically and experimentally. The maximum controllable current density is found to be increased when the space between the trench-gate and the p/sup +/ cathode is reduced. Specifically, as the space is decreased to 2 /spl mu/m, no latch-up phenomenon was observed. This nonlatch-up characteristic is obtained at the expense of a slight increase (0.8 V) in threshold voltage.