Fundamental Knowledge Thrust: Advanced Power Semiconductors (APS)

Leader: T. Paul Chow, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The goal of the APS thrust is exploration and demonstration of selected novel silicon and wide bandgap semiconductor (SiC and GaN) devices and ICs that will enable significant performance, reliability as well as cost improvements in power electronics systems. We have demonstrated enhancement mode GaN MOSFETs with blocking voltage up to 1kV, by first obtaining much improved MOS properties on GaN capacitors with optimized oxide deposition and annealing conditions. The figure below shows a proposed a GaN MOS-gated bi-directional switch, which consists of a pair of anti-parallel connected complementary MOSFET/Schottky rectifiers. Other significant accomplishments include: 1) proposed and demonstrated a novel SiC lateral channel JBS rectifier structure which has low leakage current and capacitance; 2) demonstrated 4kV epi-emitter BJTs in 4H-SiC and performance superior to those of previously reported 3.2kV devices; 3) invented several new Si lateral trench RESURF-type MOSFET structures with overall superior loss characteristics.

GaN MOS-gated bidirectional switch: structure, circuit schematic, and characteristics