Thermal characterization of single event burnout failure in semiconductor power devices

Previous experimental investigations of single event burnout of power devices due to heavy ion impacts have been performed to identify the conditions required to result in failure of devices. To verify these findings, simulations have been performed that model the burnout with limited success. Although simulations provide order-of-magnitude estimates as well as prediction of phenomenological features, they have not provided completely quantitative agreement to measurements and cannot characterize all experimental data. By describing the temperature response to the burnout event using an analytic conduction solution, secondary electrical features can be characterized. Further, it is believed that simulation modeling can be advanced through the inclusion of temperature models. This work, therefore, represents a first attempt to characterize thermal failure of power devices due to heavy ion impacts. The thermal model in the present work produces qualitative agreement with experiments on single-event burnout that have been previously unexplained.