Lateral Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor (LIGBT) with a Segmented Anode Structure

A new lateral insulated-gate bipolar transistor (LIGBT) structure, called the segmented anode LIGBT, is presented. In this structure, the anode, which is responsible for the injection of minority carriers for conductivity modulation, is implemented using segments of p+ and n+ diffusions along the device width. This segmented design of the anode structure results in higher switching speed and reduction in device size. Depending on the value of the specific ON resistance, experimental results show that the segmented anode LIGBT has from 20% to 250% reduction in turn-off time as compared to the shorted anode LIGBT.