Experimental Investigation on the Electrical Properties of Lateral IGBT Under Mechanical Strain

In this letter, we present an experimental investigation on electrical properties of lateral IGBTs (LIGBTs) under an uniaxial mechanical strain for the first time. Both ON-state and turn-off characteristics of LIGBT under an uniaxial strain are studied extensively. The uniaxial strain is applied both parallel and perpendicular to the channel direction. The uniaxial tensile strain will increase the collector current ( ${I} _{C}$ ) and the uniaxial compressive strain will decrease the ${I} _{C}$ , while the breakdown voltage ( ${V} _{\textit {BD}}$ ) is not affected. The parallel strain and perpendicular strain affect the ${I} _{C}$ distinctly in both the linear and saturation regions. The piezoresistance coefficient of LIGBT under the parallel strain is more than three times that of nMOSFET in the linear region. The parallel tensile strain declines the ON-state voltage drop ( ${V} _{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON}}$ ) and increases the turn-off time ( ${t} _{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle OFF}}$ ) and turn-off loss ( ${E} _{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle OFF}}$ ). While the perpendicular tensile strain decreases the ${V} _{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON}}$ , ${t} _{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle OFF}}$ , and ${E} _{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle OFF}}$ simultaneously, which is extremely beneficial for real applications. The mechanisms of these strain effects are studied.