Silicon carbide materials for advanced power electronic devices

Advanced SiC power electronic devices have been enabled in part by the development of high quality, uniform and reproducible SiC bulk and epitaxial materials. Epitaxial layer thickness and doping requirements for SiC power devices range from 5 to well over 100 microns and intentional p and n-type doping from 1E14 cm^-3 to 1E19 cm^-3 respectively. Epitaxial and bulk crystalline killer defects such as carrots, micropipes and basal plane dislocations(BPDs) have been reduced to <1 cm^-2 in order to achieve practical yields of stabile, large-area ~1 cm² SiC power devices such as Schortky diodes and power MOSFETs. Reduced levels of 1C crystallographic screw dislocations dramatically reduce device leakage resulting in increased parametric yield in devices sensitive to leakage such as 10 kV JBS diodes. In this paper we will describe two successful epitaxial growth platforms that have been developed to meet these diverse and challenging requirements, the Hot-Wall Horizontal reactor and the Warm-Wall Planetary epitaxial reactor.