Department of Semiconductor Electronics and Integration Science

Research Target

We are researching for a power semiconductor device “Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT)” which is used in very high voltage operation between several hundreds to thousands volts. The device has a complicated structure shown in Fig. 1. The IGBTs are utilized to power converters in many fields of applications: motorcars, trains, home appliances, solar cell modules, power plants, etc.

Subjects of Research

When you design electronic circuits to realize those applications, you will find an IGBT model for circuit design is one of the key technologies which determine their performances and costs. The model is expressed with equations describing the relationship between the input voltages and the output characteristics such as currents, charges and self-heated lattice temperature. Finally, the equations are implemented into software programs which simulate circuit operations. The model and the software enable you to simulate circuit operations with IGBTs, which accelerates you to design much better circuits and products more easily at lower cost.

Advantage of the Research

Our IGBT model "HiSIM-IGBT" is based on the high-voltage MOSFET model "HiSIM_HV" which was approved to be one of the world standard compact models by Compact Model Council (CMC) in December 2008. HiSIM-IGBT is developed based on the physical phenomena as much as possible, which promises accurate reproduction and prediction of measured data.

Contributions

IGBT model is one of the most important technologies for the development of high-power application products. Since the accuracy and stability of the model lead to lower energy consumption and cost of the products, it is highly expected that the model contributes to the protection of the global environment.

Available CAD Tools

circuit simulators (SPICE3f5, SmartSpice, HSPICE, Spectre, ADS), parameter extraction tools (ICCAP, UTMOST IV), device simulators (Taurus-MEDICI, Sentaurus Device, ATLAS), process simulators (Taurus-TSUPREM4, Sentaurus Process), etc.

Message to Prospective Students

Any foreign students who have strong wills to study compact modeling are welcome. Feel free to contact us.

Fig.1 Fig.2 Fig.3
Fig.1. Example IGBT structure. Fig.2. Test circuit with inductive load of motor. Fig.3. Waveform of Ic in Fig. 2 calculated with HiSIM-IGBT and SPICE3f5
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