Impact of a backside Schottky contact on the thyristor characteristics at high temperature

In this paper, a thyristor structure presenting improved electrical characteristics at high temperature is analysed through 2D physical simulations. The replacement of the P emitter of a standard symmetrical thyristor by a judicious association of P diffusions and Schottky contacts at the anode side contributes to the reduction of the leakage current in the forward direction and hence improves the forward blocking voltage at high temperature. A fine-tune of the anode side configuration will improve the forward off-state behaviour with only a negligible on-state voltage drop degradation. Moreover, the comparison with the conventional anode short thyristor shows that the insertion of Schottky contacts leads to the same improvements that the anode short in terms of off-state characteristics, while keeping the reverse blocking capability