The MOS-gated floating base thyristor: a new dual gate thyristor with improved forward biased safe operating area

Abstract

The Floating Base Thyristor (FBT) is a new thyristor structure proposed for obtaining a low on-state voltage drop during conduction and a good Forward Biased Safe Operating Area (FBSOA). This structure has highly doped P/sup +/ region in the floating P-base region to improve FBSOA. The FBT has two MOS gates-that will be hereafter referred to as the ON-gate and the OFF-gate. When both gates are biased positively, the device conducts with low forward voltage drop. When the OFF-gate is negatively biased the device operates in the IGBT mode and is able to saturate currents to high voltages. The effect of design parameters and temperature on latching current density and forward voltage drop of the FBT and the dependence of turnoff time with electron radiation dose are examined in this paper.