Demonstration of superior UIS robustness of 3300 V scaled IGBT by non-proportional scaling methods

Abstract Robustness under high-temperature Unclamped Inductive Switching (UIS) tests was systematically compared among 3300 V scaled Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) using TCAD simulations, with scaling factors (k) ranging from 1 to 10. Based on multiple lines of physical evidence, the failure mechanism of IGBTs during the UIS test was identified as a latch-up. A slight degradation in UIS robustness was observed in fully scaled IGBTs, as evaluated using a novel reliability comparison method. Moreover, certain non-proportional scaling techniques were shown to mitigate this degradation, with some approaches even surpassing the UIS robustness of the original (k = 1) IGBT design.