Effects of carrier lifetime and end-region recombination on the forward current and switching behavior of power pin diodes

It has been shown that the on-state current-voltage characteristic of power pin diodes can be expressed in terms of base lifetime, r s ; ratio of base width, W, to diffusion length, L A ; and end-region recombination effects, h p and h n . The switching characteristic can be described in terms of a normalized form of these parameters, including the current density, J T , for a range of device dimensions. Independent experimental evaluation of these parameters, together with the theories, has accurately predicted the current-voltage characteristic up to 450 A cm - 2 and confirmed the general behavior of the switching characteristics of a set of pin diodes with dimensions in the range 1.5 ≤ W/L A ≤ 4.