The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 23, 2006
Filed:
Oct. 09, 2003
Andrew Horch, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Scott Robins, San Jose, CA (US);
Andrew Horch, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Scott Robins, San Jose, CA (US);
T-RAM, Inc., Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A semiconductor device is formed having a thyristor, a pass device and a conductive shunt that electrically connects an emitter region of the thyristor with a node near an upper surface of the substrate. In one example embodiment of the present invention, the conductive shunt is formed in a trench in a substrate and extending from an upper surface of the substrate to an emitter region of a vertical thyristor, with the emitter region being in the substrate and below the upper surface. In one implementation, the thyristor includes a thyristor body and a control port, with an N+ emitter region of the thyristor body being in the substrate and below and upper surface thereof. A pass device is formed adjacent to the thyristor, and the conductive shunt is formed in a trench extending from the N+ emitter region to a source/drain region of the pass device. With this approach, thyristor applications can be implemented having an emitter region in a substrate and not necessarily directly accessible, for example, via an upper surface of the substrate. This approach is also useful, for example, in applications where a cathode-down thyristor is used, such as when it is desirable to form the thyristor control port near a bottom portion of the thyristor, and in high-density circuit applications, such as memory arrays.