Asea Brown Boveri Ag

Abb Management Ag

Friedhelm Bauer

Reinhold Bayerer

Peter Streit

Thomas Stockmeier

Klas Lilja

Simon Eicher

A GTO is specified which, starting from the anode-side main surface (2), comprises an anode emitter (6), a barrier layer (11), an n-base (7), a p-base (8) and a cathode emitter (9). The anode emitter (6) is designed as a transparent emitter and has anode short-circuits (10). By virtue of the combination of the barrier layer, the transparent anode emitter and the anode short-circuits, a GTO is obtained which can be operated at high switching frequencies, the substrate thickness of which can be reduced and which nevertheless exhibits no increase in the switching losses.

Gate turn-off thyristor for high blocking voltage and small component

A power semiconductor component is specified which provides for a significant reduction in the thickness of the semiconductor substrate (1) whilst at the same time optimizing the switching losses. A transparent emitter (6) and a stop layer (7) are arranged to provide a thin semiconductor and optimized switching losses. The means can be used both in semiconductor switches such as IGBT, MCT or GTO and in diodes.

Power semiconductor component with transparent emitter and stop layer

In the case of a controllable power semiconductor component, which comprises at least one planar, essentially rectangular power semiconductor chip (13), which power semiconductor chip (13) has on its top side a large-area metallization layer (14) for the large-area electrical connection to a metal mating element (17, 19), and also a separate small-area connection region for the gate connection in the form of a gate pad (16), a simplified form of the metal mating element (17, 19) and adjustment thereof are achieved by virtue of the fact that the gate pad (16) is arranged in a corner of the power semiconductor chip (13).

Controllable power semiconductor component

A diode (1) is specified which has electron injection means on the anode-side principal surface (3). After the reverse-current peak has been traversed, said means inject electrons into the anode emitter. This compensates for holes and the danger of a dynamic field overshoot, which may result in an avalanche breakdown, is reduced. The electron injection means preferably comprise an n-channel MOS cell. High voltages and high dI/dt values can be safely handled with a diode according to the invention. A diode in accordance with the invention is preferably used as freewheeling diode in a converter circuit arrangement.

Semiconductor diode in which electrons are injected into a reverse

In an MOS-controlled power semiconductor component having a multiplicity of cathode cells, the surface area proportion of the cathode cells relative to the total component surface area is selected at between 0.1% and 10% in the case of circular cell geometry and between 0.4% and 40% in the case of strip-shaped cell geometry. As a result of this, the susceptibility to oscillation caused by small inductances can be reduced. (FIG. 1)

MOS-controlled power semiconductor component for high voltages

A GTO having a cathode emitter (7) is specified, which cathode emitter has a low emission efficiency. This cathode emitter (7) provides a clearly increased resistance to the formation of current filaments. As a result, relatively high turn-off current densities can be reliably mastered. In addition, the fraction of the hole current in the total current is more than 10%. This is achieved, for example, by selecting the penetration depth as &lt;1 .mu.m and the edge concentration as &lt;10.sup.19 cm.sup.-3.

Gate turn-off thyristor

An insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is specified, the collector (7) and source regions (8) of which can be produced by means of a self-aligning method. This provides an IGBT which is distinguished by a homogeneous turn-off current distribution. For this purpose, the width W of the source regions (8) is selected to be so small that holes can flow laterally into the surrounding collector region. In this connection it must be ensured that the voltage drop across the PN junction of the source regions and collector regions remains below the inherent forward voltage at any time. In consequence, the IGBT according to the invention is particularly insensitive to latch-up.

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Suhr, Switzerland

Friedhelm Bauer