A modular concept for the circuit simulation of bipolar power semiconductors

Abstract

Physical network simulation models of bipolar power devices strongly depend on an accurate description of the low-doped drift zone, because the behavior of the diffusion charge in this region governs the static and dynamic device characteristics. In this paper a one-dimensional modeling module for the drift zone is presented, which accounts for all important effects under high injection conditions: nonquasistatic ambipolar diffusion, temperature- and injection-level dependent scattering and recombination effects as well as impact ionization. When combined with well known expressions describing the rest of the respective structure, very accurate and CPU-time efficient network models can be implemented, that are suited for all applications including resonant modes (ZVS, ZCS, ZVT). The module is incorporated in a commercially available network simulator and used so far for modeling the IGBT, the high power diode and the GTO.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>