Reverse recovery processes in silicon power rectifiers

The present review gives an account of a number of investigations that have been recently carried out in the Semiconductor Laboratory Pretzfeld, Siemens AG. The switching processes in power rectifiers from the forward into the reverse state differ greatly from the corresponding process predicted by low-level theory. This result is caused not only by the fact that the conditions are different for high injection, but in addition, the sweeping out of the charge carriers takes place from two sides, owing to the nearly uniform concentration distribution in the forward state. Because of the unequal electron and hole mobilities, the impurity distribution on the side of the p contact is of much greater importance than at the n contact; if there is no p-n junction on this more important side, then the stored change can be swept out without much voltage buildup (example: rectifiers from uniformly doped p material). If, on the other hand, a p-n junction lies before the p contact (example: rectifiers from uniformly doped n material) then tbe reverse recovery current decays soon but slowly, and the switching process takes a longer time. This fact also contributes to the relatively long turn-off time of the thyristors.