3D Wide-Area TCAD Approach to Address Avalanche Breakdown in IGBT Edge Termination

This work presents a novel approach to perform trustworthy three-dimensional (3D) wide-area Technology Computer-Aided Design (TCAD) simulations of avalanche breakdown at the device edge termination of an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT). By i) skipping computationally-demanding 3D process simulations, ii) introducing suitable approximations in the trench-gate (TG) and source contact (SC) geometry, and iii) properly shaping the simulation domain, the proposed approach allows to accurately address all aspects of device breakdown with affordable computational burdens. That makes the approach a powerful solution for predictive analyses supporting the design of next-generation IGBT technologies.