Predicting Cosmic Ray-Induced Failures in Silicon Carbide Power Devices

A phenomenological expression for predicting atmospheric neutron-induced failure rates in silicon carbide (SiC) power devices is presented. This expression that relates the local electric field to terrestrial neutron-induced failure rate is derived using empirical data that show commonalities between failures of different SiC power devices under this type of radiation. We also present a physics-based approach that provides a similar functional form for predicting these failure rates. The proposed closed-form expression is then used to demonstrate the use of this model in predicting failure rates in a hypothetical silicon carbide power device modeled using a technology computer-aided design tool.