Current Crowding Study by IIR-LD in a 1.2 kV SiC Schottky Diode

For the first time, die-level current crowding phenomena are analyzed at the microsecond timescale with an internal IR-Laser Deflection (IIR-LD) set-up. As a test vehicle, a 1.2 kVSiC Schottky diode ($1.6\times 1.6\mathrm{m}\mathrm{m}^{2}$ active area) with an edge termination based on a junction termination extension has been studied under 100 $\mu \mathrm{s}$-pulsed currents (ranging from 215 to 330 $\mathrm{A}/\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}^{2})$. Under such conditions, the edge termination starts a local bipolar conduction along the device active area perimeter, leading to current crowding effects. To monitor this, an area on the lateral side-wall of $200\times 10\mu \mathrm{m}^{2}$ has been scanned in steps of 20 $\mu \mathrm{m}$ through x-direction and 2 $\mu \mathrm{m}$ along y-direction, thus obtaining 2D depth-resolved measurements.