High voltage silicon diode with optimum placement of silicon-germanium layers

US5640043A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• General Instrument Corporation of Delaware · US

Inventors

• Jack Eng · Freeport, US
• Joseph Chan · San Francisco, US
• Lawrence LaTerza · Miller Place, US
• Gregory Zakaluk · Seaford, US
• Jun Wu · Coram, US
• John Amato · Tracy, US
• Dennis Garbis · Huntington Station, US
• Willem G. Einthoven · Montgomery, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 20, 1995
• Grant date: Jun 17, 1997
• Expiry date: Dec 20, 2015

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H10D8/422

Abstract

A high voltage silicon rectifier includes a substrate portion and an epitaxial mesa portion that is a frustrum of a pyramid with a substantially square cross section and side walls that make a forty five degree angle with the substrate portion. The mesa portion includes three germanium doped layers that introduce strain to speed up recombination of charge carriers. The topography of the base region of the rectifier has a high-low junction that includes a central portion that is deeper in the mesa than the germanium-doped layers and an edge portion that is shallower in the mesa than the germanium-doped layers and forms a positive bevel angle with the tapered side walls of the mesa,