Electrothermal simulation of power semiconductor devices

Author

Gough, Paul A. ; Walker, Philip ; Whight, Kenneth R.

Author_Institution

Philips Res. Lab., Redhill, UK

fYear

1991

fDate

22-24 Apr 1991

Firstpage

89

Lastpage

94

Abstract

TESSA, a program designed to simulate the coupled electrothermal behavior of semiconductor devices in two and three dimensions, is discussed. The equations used to capture the electrothermal physics and the algorithms used to solve them are described. Simulations are reported for a multifingered bipolar power transistor. These show that the characteristic form of the temperature distribution, within the transistor, is quite different for the saturated and unsaturated cases. The effect of temperature on the partitioning of current between emitter fingers is investigated. In addition, the components of heat generation, e.g., recombination heat, and their relative importance are calculated

Keywords

bipolar transistors; digital simulation; electronic engineering computing; power transistors; semiconductor device models; temperature distribution; thermal analysis; TESSA; coupled electrothermal behavior; heat generation; multifingered bipolar power transistor; power semiconductor devices; recombination heat; simulation program; temperature distribution; Electrothermal effects; Equations; Fingers; Partitioning algorithms; Physics; Power semiconductor devices; Power transistors; Radiative recombination; Semiconductor devices; Temperature distribution;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs, 1991. ISPSD '91., Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD

ISSN

1063-6854

Print_ISBN

0-7803-0009-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISPSD.1991.146074

Filename

146074