Study on increasing the surge capability of a lightning surge protection semiconductor device

Abstract

Design techniques for increasing the surge capability of a bidirectional SCR (silicon controlled rectifier) lightning surge protection device for communications equipment are described. The relationships between surge capability and doping profiles with different p-base widths and n-base impurity concentrations are studied by analyzing failure modes and surge response characteristics. A narrow p-base width is effective for increasing surge capability because it can reduce turn-on energy dissipation that leads to hot-spot failure. Furthermore, reducing the on-state energy dissipation can increase surge capability without increasing device size.<>