Lateral semiconductor device with vertical breakdown region

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9129802-B2
Application number	US-201313973482-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 22, 2013
Priority date	Aug 27, 2012
Publication date	Sep 8, 2015
Grant date	Sep 8, 2015

Abstract

A lateral semiconductor device having a vertical region for providing a protective avalanche breakdown (PAB) is disclosed. The lateral semiconductor device has a lateral structure that includes a conductive substrate, semi-insulating layer(s) disposed on the conductive substrate, device layer(s) disposed on the semi-insulating layer(s), along with a source electrode and a drain electrode disposed on the device layer(s). The vertical region is separated from the source electrode by a lateral region wherein the vertical region has a relatively lower breakdown voltage level than a relatively higher breakdown voltage level of the lateral region for providing the PAB within the vertical region to prevent a potentially damaging breakdown of the lateral region. The vertical region is structured to be more rugged than the lateral region and thus will not be damaged by a PAB event.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A lateral semiconductor device comprising:
a lateral structure comprising:
a conductive substrate;
at least one semi-insulating layer disposed on the conductive substrate;
at least one device layer disposed on the at least one semi-insulating layer;
a source electrode disposed on the at least one device layer;
a drain electrode disposed on the at least one device layer;
a vertical region that includes the drain electrode and at least a portion of…

Assignees

• Rf Micro Devices Inc

Inventors

• Ritenour Andrew P

Classifications

• H10D62/8503

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10D30/47

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10D8/00

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10D64/258

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10D64/254

  Electricity · mapped topic