ANALYSIS OF ON-STATE STATIC AND

DYNAMIC TRANSIENTS OF HIGH VOLTAGE

4H-SIC MERGED-PIN-SCHOTTKY DIODE
Chengjun Shen1*, Saeed Jahdi1, Phil Mellor1, Juefei Yang1, Erfan Bashar2,
Olayiwola Alatise2, Jose Ortiz-Gonzalez2
1
Electrocal Engineering Department, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
2
Electrocal Engineering Department, University of Warwick, Warwick, United Kingdom
* Corresponding Author: [Link]@[Link]

Keywords: Silicon Carbide, Power Semiconductor Diodes, Junction Barrier Schottky, Merged-PiN-Schottky

Abstract
The 4H-SiC vertical Merged-PiN-Schottky (MPS) diodes are attractive power devices with potentials to be used in high-power
DC-DC converter with high voltage ratings in the range of 1.7 kV and high operating temperatures, as an alternative to Junction
Barrier Schottky (JBS) diodes. This paper reveals the dynamic switching performance and the static characteristics of the SiC
MPS diode in comparison with the Silicon PiN diodes and SiC JBS diodes through a wide range of experimental measurements.
It shows the superior switching performance of the SiC MPS and JBS diodes due to the absence of the reverse recovery charge.
However, it is shown that this is at the cost of the large on state voltage especially at high currents and high temperatures and
the increasing forward voltage during the conduction state. As the temperature dependence of forward voltage of Silicon PiN
diodes is negative, they are prone to thermal runaway when connected in parallel. Such destructive consequence is also hold for
single SiC MPS diode as it is shown that the lack of conductivity modulation leads to a surge of forward voltage in the on-state.

1 Introduction

S iC Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs), unlike the other SiC

power devices like SiC MOSFETs and SiC JFETs, still
suffer from a poor reverse blocking performance even
though the critical electrical field of SiC is an order of (a)
magnitude larger than Silicon. This is because the leakage
current of SiC SBD is much larger compared to the
aforementioned SiC devices even at low reverse blocking
voltage of about 300V before the onset of avalanche
breakdown [1-3]. One of the reasons for this significant
leakage currents are the presence of surface defects at the
Schottky contact [4]. In addition, the Schottky barrier height is
reduced by the image force [2] [4] when the electric field is
applied at metal- semiconduction junction.
To solve this problem, 4H-SiC device manufactures moved (b)
towards the Merged PiN Schottky (MPS) diode which contains
additional implanted P+ well located just below the Schottky
contact, as can be seen in Fig.1. This effectively enables to
become one of the few available bipolar SiC devices [5, 6] The
space between P-N junctions in the MPS structure pinches off
at small reverse bias voltage where a potential barrier is
formed under the p+ region to protect the Schottky contact
from the high electric field. The greatly reduction of electric
field at Schottky contact suppress both the Schottky barrier
lowering and the surge of energy states at Schottky contact, (c)
both achieves a further reduction of leakage current in SiC
MPS than Silicon MPS as the absence of surface defects in the
latter devices. Power Rectifiers are used for high frequency
and medium voltage applications as output diodes in Power
Factor Correction (PFC) circuit [7] and freewheeling diodes in
the Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)control circuit [3]. Fig. 1. Cross-sectional schematic of (a) Silicon PiN diode, (b) 4H-
SiC JBS diode and (c) 4H-SiC MPS diode.

1
During the reverse recovery, the large reverse recovery current,
especially in the PiN diode, not only produces significant
power dissipation in the diode, but also impose substantial
power dissipation to the Power switch, IGBT in the PFC and
MOSFET in the VFD circuit, as the peak reverse recovery
current of diode is also added to the power switch during the
turn-on transient. The SiC MPS diodes are promising to reduce
turn-on losses of Power switch due to the low reverse recovery
charge but incur extra on-state voltage drop compared to PiN Figure 2: The double pulse test circuit for dynamic transient
rectifier. Recent study [8] showed the design guideline of a measurements of diode rectifiers.
high voltage SiC MPS diode with superior on-state on state
characteristics even at high current densities while [9] 2.1 Turn-off Performance
explored the effect of the width of the p+ region on the
Fig.3 shows the double-pulse testing result including the turn-
avalanche current crowding and unbalance current distribution
off switching transient of all three diodes. Since the power
phenomenon under avalanche condition. Nevertheless,
switch dominate the switching characteristic in the double
previous studies of static performance have not dealt with the
pulse circuit, the current turn-off rate is same for all passive
self-heating effects of the SiC MPS diode at different current
diodes. As also indicated in this figure, the reverse recovery
levels while the high-level injection effect of MPS diode has
process of Silicon PiN diode leads to extra turn-off time while
not been explored by experiment.
the absence of substantial stored charge in SiC JBS and MPS
This paper explores the switching performances and static
diode almost remove this process and thus switch faster with
characteristic of 4H-SiC MPS diode in contrast to Silicon PiN small ringing generated by the diode internal capacitance.
and SiC Junction Barrier Schottky (JBS) diode, the Reverse
recovery Current and on-state voltage drop are characterized Table 1 Electrical parameters of Power Silicon PiN, 4H-SiC JBS
in a wide range of temperature ranged from 25ºC to 175ºC. and 4H-SiC MPS diode at T= 25ºC unless otherwise noted.
Section II provides the dynamic switching transients of the Silicon PiN SiC JBS SiC MPS
three diode rectifiers seen in experimental results while
Section III analyses the static performance following with the Model DSI30-12A C4D20120A GC20MPS12220
discussion in Section IV and conclusion of this paper in Made IXYS CREE GeneSiC
Section V.
Blocking Voltage 1200 V 1200 V 1200 V

2 Dynamic Performance Forward Current 30A at 130ºC 26A at 135ºC 30A at 135ºC
Leakage Current 40 μA 200 μA 10 μA
The dynamic transient’s performance of Silicon PiN, SiC JBS
and SiC MPS diode have been investigated through a wide
range of experimental measurements. All the devices are TO-
220 packaged. These power rectifiers are tested on a double-
pulse testing board shown in Fig. 2 with a N-channel SiC
power MOSFET SCT3160KL acting as power switch. The
SiC MOSFET is driven by a gate driver generating output
voltage in a range between +15 V and -5 V. The gate resistance
RG provided in Fig. 2 is increased from 10 to 100 Ω to adjust
the switching speed of the MOSFET while the operation
temperature rises from 25°C to 175°C in 25-degree increments
via ITC-100RL PID Temperature Controller. The length of the
charging pulse is adjusted through an Agilent 33220A 20 MHz
arbitrary waveform generator to provide on-state current of 10
A. The voltage applied to all power rectifiers is 650 volts.
Although this is a low voltage and current application for all
three devices which can sustain much higher forward currents,
the voltage and current level is selected carefully after
exploring many operating voltages to ensure the safe operation.
Table 1 includes the key parameters of the three diodes to be
used for further analysis. Two GW-Instek GDP-100 100 MHz
voltages probes and a CWT Ultra-mini 50 MHz Rogowski
current coil (CWT1) are used to capture voltage and current
waveforms while both are shown in a Keysight MSO7104 A
1-GHz 4 GSa/s oscilloscope.
Figure 3: The diode current and diode voltage at turn-off for all three
rectifiers at 25ºC under blocking voltage of 650V.

2
The effect of operating temperature and switching speed on
turn-off current transient can be seen in Fig.4. It can be seen
that the reverse current of both SiC JBS and MPS diodes are
independent to temperature variations. The main reason is that
the lack of reverse recovery charge in JBS and MPS which is
dependent to temperature. The switching transients of JBS and
MPS diode under various switching speed are also provided,
where the expected impact of increasing the gate resistance is
seen. As for the voltage switching transient shown in Fig.3, the
SiC JBS and MPS diode start to sustain voltage much earlier
than Silicon PiN diode since the latter device is required to
remove substantial amount of free carrier at two P-N junctions Figure 5: Turn-Off voltage under blocking voltage of 650V for SiC
before it is capable of supporting voltage. JBS & MPS diodes at 25 to 175℃ and at 10 to 100 Ω.

2.1 Turn-on Performance

Fig.6 shows the turn-on switching transient of all three diodes.
It is worth pointing out that the extra voltage undershoot of
Silicon PiN diode is because of the stray inductance due to the
dimension of the device.

Figure 4: Turn-Off current under blocking voltage of 650V for SiC

JBS & MPS diodes at 25 to 175℃ and at 10 to 100 Ω.

Although the voltage turn-off rate for Silicon PiN diode is

almost same at different temperatures, the turn-off process
completes earlier at low temperatures. This is because of the
faster carrier swept-out at low temperatures as shown in Fig.4.
Fig. 5 shows that the voltage transition of SiC JBS diode are
almost identical to that of SiC MPS diode. Figure 6: The diode current and diode voltage at turn-on for all three
rectifiers at 25ºC under blocking voltage of 650V.

3
 Where Lp is the diffusion length for holes, Dp is the diffusion
constant for holes and p0N is the is the hole concentration in
equilibrium on the N-side of the junction. When the forward
current is further increased, the high current density of both
electrons and holes are observed in the drift region, combining
the voltage drop across the middle region (VD), the total on-
state voltage drops for the PiN rectifier is derive by [3]:

𝑉 (𝐻𝑖𝑔ℎ) = ln[ ] (3)

( / )

Where La is the ambipolar diffusion length, Da is the ambipolar

Figure 7: Turn-On current under blocking voltage of 650V for SiC diffusion coefficient and d/La is the normalized Drift Region
JBS & MPS diodes at 25 to 175℃ and at 10 to 100 Ω. Width. The dimension ‘d’ is determined by the size of the P+
region. For that of SiC MPS/JBS at low current levels, the on-
state voltage is mainly determined by the voltage across the
Schottky contact and those region with high resistance [3],
which is given by:

𝑉 / (𝐿𝑜𝑤) = 𝑉 + 𝑉 = 𝑅 𝐽 + ɸ + ln (4)

Where VFS is the forward voltage drop across the Schottky

contact, ɸB is the Schottky barrier height, A is the effective
Richardson’s constant and RS is the total on-state resistance as
the sum of neutral region resistance and substrate resistance.
At larger forward current densities of JBS/MPS diode [3], the
injected minority carrier concentration in the drift region is
much higher than the base doping concentration leading to
conductivity modulation as that in PiN diode. An almost
constant voltage drop across the drift region will be observed
as the injected carrier concentration in the drift region
increases in proportion to the current density:

𝑉 (𝐻𝑖𝑔ℎ) = 𝑉 + 𝑉 + 𝑉 =ɸ + ln +
( / )
( ) ( / )
− ln +
( / )
Figure 8: Turn-On voltage under blocking voltage of 650V for SiC ln (5)
JBS & MPS diodes at 25 to 175℃ and at 10 to 100 Ω.
Where XJ is the junction depth of the P+ region and JFC is the
3. Static Performance current density at cathode.
The Static performance of Silicon PiN, SiC JBS and SiC MPS
The forward voltage drop in PiN diode is governed by three diode have also been characterized. In this case, same power
current transport mechanisms. At very low on-state current rectifiers are tested on a static tests circuit shown in Fig. 9 with
levels, the recombination of carriers at the P-N junction the same power switch. Unlike the configuration for previous
dominates the current transport. The current dependence of the measurements, this SiC MOSFET connected in series to
voltage drop is given by [2]: diodes is used to accurately control the current conduction time
through the diode under test while the same MOSFET driver
[ ]
is used. The gate resistance used for the gate driver circuit is
𝑉 (𝑉𝐿) = (1)
10 Ω for enabling the fastest dynamic switching transient to
minimize the switching power losses while the operation
Where JF is the forward current density, 𝜏SC is the space-charge temperature rises from 25°C to 175 °C in 25-degree
generation lifetime and ni is the intrinsic carrier concentration. increments via the aforementioned Temperature Controller.
With the increase of load current, the injection of minority The ELC ALR3206D power supply outputs the on-state
carriers into the drift region become dominant. The on-state current ranged from 1-6A in 1A increments while the
voltage due to the injection of minority carriers from both conducting period of 3s for all three diodes is set by the
junctions into the N-drift region is given as [2]: waveform generator. Tektronix current probe model TCP312
in conjunction with a probe amplifier model TCPA300 was
[ ] used for measuring the diode currents while a JAMECO P6100
𝑉 (𝐿𝑜𝑤) = (2) 100MHz voltage probe was used to measure the diode voltage.

4
Figure 9: The Static test circuit for on-state measurements of diode
rectifiers.

3.1 Low Current Measurements

Figure 10 shows the voltage drop of three diode rectifiers
under the conduction mode. It is observed that the on-state
voltage of SiC JBS and MPS diode is larger than that of Silicon
PiN diode because of the higher built-in voltage of SiC devices
due to the much lower intrinsic carrier concentration even
though the P-N junction usually exhibits a higher voltage than
that for Schottky junction. Figure 10 shows that the decrease
of the on-state voltage during the conduction mode for Silicon
PiN diode as the junction voltages plays important role during Figure 10: On-state voltage during self-heating for all three devices
self-heating because of the positive temperature coefficient of with temperature of 25℃ and for each of Silicon PiN, SiC JBS and
the intrinsic carrier concentration which is inverse related to SiC MPS diodes at various current levels.
the junction voltage [10]. In the case of SiC JBS and MPS
diode, the forward voltage decreases with increasing
temperature due to increased thermionic emission of electrons
across the Schottky contact barrier height. The detailed
temperature dependence of on-state voltage is shown in Figure
11, which shows that Silicon PiN diode exhibits a negative
temperature coefficient for the on-state voltage drop as
expected because of the temperature dependence of junction
voltage. The on-state voltage of SiC JBS and diode decreases
with increasing of temperature from 25°C to 125°C then shows
a positive temperature coefficient at high temperatures. This is
because of the voltage drops across the drift resistances
become dominant with the increasing temperature, hence, the
total on-state voltage increases with temperature. The negative
temperature dependence of MPS diode means that the junction
voltage dominates the forward voltage at 6A. Since the diode
current under test is lower than that shown in table 1, the on-
state current has been increased to investigate the temperature
dependence of diode voltage at high currents, and to validate
the existence of conductivity modulation.

Figure 11: On-state voltage during self-heating for (a) Silicon PiN,
and for (b) SiC JBS and for (c) SiC MPS diode at various operating
temperatures.

5
3.2 High Current Measurements
For high current Static measurements, the same static test
circuit is used while the C4D20120A SiC JBS diode is
replaced by a 1200V/15A SiC JBS diode with reference
C4D10120H, the DSI30-12A Silicon PiN diode is replaced by
a 1200V/30A Silicon PiN diode with reference DSEP30-12B.
The diode current is now linearly increased from 5A to 20A in
5A steps. Although the on-state voltage of the new Silicon PiN
diode is higher than that of its counterparts, as shown in Figure
12 and 13, due to the different device structure, the
conductivity modulation effect is observed since a less voltage
increment is observed at high currents. The minor conductivity
modulation effect is observed at 175°C from Figure 14 where
the voltage increment is larger. This is in-line with the trend
expected by equation 3. However, the conductivity modulation
is not observed in SiC JBS and MPS diode at low and high
temperature. This is because of the large built-in voltage of the
SiC P-N junction (about 3V) when compared with the
conduction state voltage from experiments.

Figure 13: On-state voltage during self-heating for all three devices
with temperature of 175℃ and for each of Silicon PiN, SiC JBS and
SiC MPS diodes at various current levels.

Figure 12: On-state voltage during self-heating for all three devices
with temperature of 25℃ and for each of Silicon PiN, SiC JBS and
SiC MPS diodes at various current levels.

6
 Experimental results indicate that the switching performance
of SiC MPS and SiC JBS diodes outperform the Silicon PiN
diode due to the negligible reverse recovery charge and thus
the much smaller switching power loss. Nevertheless, the on-
state voltage of Silicon diode is smaller than the SiC
counterparts due to the small junction voltage as a result of the
high intrinsic carrier concentration in Silicon. However, in the
case of the SiC MPS and SiC JBS diodes, a large on-state
voltage appears at conduction especially at high currents and
high temperatures. It is also seen that the temperature
dependence of forward voltage in Silicon PiN diode is negative,
so it is not suitable for paralleling because of the thermal
Figure 14: On-state voltage during self-heating for (a) Silicon PiN, (b) runaway. Such destructive consequence also holds for single
SiC JBS and (c) SiC MPS diode at various operating temperatures.
SiC MPS diode as the lack of conductivity modulation leads to
Figures 12, 13 and 14 show the negative temperature a surge of forward voltage during the on state. To promote the
dependence of the on-state voltage of Si PiN diode at the conductivity modulation, the carrier lifetime of the SiC MPS
beginning of the on-state and during the on-state, as it was diode needs to increase by use of defect free substrates. This
explained in the last section. Nevertheless, the reversal of also holds for fabrication of other practical SiC bipolar devices.
temperature dependence of on-state voltage where the
increasing drift layer voltage drop with temperature become 5 References
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