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SiC BJT's for High Power Switching and RF Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2011

Anant Agarwal ,
Sei-Hyung Ryu ,
Craig Capell ,
James Richmond ,
John W. Palmour ,
Binh Phan ,
Jerry Stambaugh ,
Howard Bartlow  and
Ken Brewer
Anant Agarwal
Affiliation:
Cree Inc., 4600 Silicon Dr., Durham, NC 27703, U.S.A.
Sei-Hyung Ryu
Affiliation:
Cree Inc., 4600 Silicon Dr., Durham, NC 27703, U.S.A.
Craig Capell
Affiliation:
Cree Inc., 4600 Silicon Dr., Durham, NC 27703, U.S.A.
James Richmond
Affiliation:
Cree Microwave, 160 Gibraltar Court, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, U.S.A.
John W. Palmour
Affiliation:
Cree Inc., 4600 Silicon Dr., Durham, NC 27703, U.S.A.
Binh Phan
Affiliation:
Cree Microwave, 160 Gibraltar Court, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, U.S.A.
Jerry Stambaugh
Affiliation:
Cree Microwave, 160 Gibraltar Court, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, U.S.A.
Howard Bartlow
Affiliation:
Cree Microwave, 160 Gibraltar Court, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, U.S.A.
Ken Brewer
Affiliation:
Cree Microwave, 160 Gibraltar Court, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, U.S.A.
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Abstract

In this paper, high performance, high voltage NPN bipolar junction transistors in 4H-SiC are presented for applications in low frequency (< 5 MHz) power conversion systems as well as in RF (425 MHz) power amplifiers. The power BJTs for low frequency switching applications were designed to block 1300 V and showed a specific on-resistance of 8.0 mohm-cm2, which outperforms all SiC power switching devices ever reported. Moreover, these transistors show a positive temperature coefficient in the on-resistance and a negative temperature coefficient in the current gain, which enable easy paralleling of the devices. In addition, RF BJTs were designed, fabricated and tested for operation at UHF frequencies. The common emitter breakdown voltage was in excess of 500 V consistent with the 5 micron collector thickness. For VCC = 20 V, fT peaked at about 1.5 GHz. A single cell was measured in common emitter mode with a collector supply voltage of 80 V in class AB at 425 MHz. A 100 μs pulse width with 10% duty cycle was used. A maximum output power of 50 W for a single cell was achieved. The peak large signal power gain was 9.6 dB. The collector efficiency at the power output of 50 W was 51% with a power gain of 9.3 dB. This represents the first demonstration of a SiC RF BJT.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 742: Symposium K – Silicon Carbide-Materials, Processing, and Devices , 2002 , K7.3
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2003

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References

REFERENCES

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