Two-dimensional simulation of power MOSFET near breakdown

Abstract

A simulation program has been developed to facilitate the investigation and analysis of power semiconductor devices under the reverse-bias condition. The electrostatic potential distribution is solved by using Poisson's equation alone, with particular attention to the neighborhood of avalanche breakdown. Because of its generality and efficiency, the program emerges as a powerful engineering tool for the design of power devices incorporating special junction termination techniques. Results are presented for a DMOS structure to illustrate the improvement in breakdown voltage when a field plate is applied. Numerical solution techniques for solving elliptic partial differential equations in a multi-material domain are discussed. The discretization of this domain is nonuniform in general due to its highly nonuniform physical parameters. By careful selection of grid lines near interfaces, the difference equation coefficients are considerably simplified. The resultant matrix of coefficients is symmetric even though Neumann boundary conditions are specified.