《SOA in High Power Semiconductors》.pdfVIP

SOA in High Power Semiconductors Alper Akdag IAS, October 2006, Tampa, USA Copyright © [2006] IEEE. Reprinted from the Industry Applications Society. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of ABB Switzerland Ltd, Semiconductorss products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to pubs-permissions@ieee.org. ABB Switzerland Ltd. SOA in High Power Semiconductors SOA in High Power Semiconductors Alper Akdag ABB Switzerland Ltd. Semiconductors Lenzburg, Switzerland Abstract — This paper gives an overview on the SOA of high power semiconductors. Two main types of high power semiconductors are investigated: large area devices and modules with paralleled chips. The paper explains the limits of SOA and ways of improving it in the semiconductor design level, as well as it gives practical advantages for a high SOA in the device. Keywords-comp onent; Saf e Op erating Area; SOA; I GBT; I GCT; high p ower semiconductor I. INTRODUCTION One of the main challenges today in the design of high voltage – high power semiconductors is the Safe Operating Area “SOA” capability [1]. A destruction point characterizes the SOA limits where