SMI Receives Funding for Development of Dielectrics for SiC MOSFET Devices

There is a world-wide need for improved devices used in conjunction with high-power, high-temperature applications, as well as in detectors and instrumentation in high energy physics applications. Silicon carbide (SiC) based electronics are well suited for use in these aggressive environments. However, present technology SiC devices suffer from poor reliability and limited high temperature performance due to the lack of suitable gate dielectric materials and the associated fabrication techniques.

SMI is developing gate dielectric materials for SiC devices based on high dielectric constant (high-k) materials. The use of these high-k materials allows increased transistor gate thickness without sacrificing device speed or performance. This allows lower electric fields in the vicinity of the transistor gate and reduced leakage currents. Similar technology has been applied to silicon device manufacturing to allow continued scaling down of transistor dimensions. SMI is applying high-k materials to SiC device manufacturing to produce transistor devices that are more reliable and have better high temperature performance. Energy efficient, high-temperature, radiation-hard transistor devices are needed in high energy physics applications, as well as a variety of other commercial, military and scientific applications. This SBIR project will develop electronic devices based on silicon carbide with significantly improved performance and reliability. In the Phase II effort, we are integrating our high-k film structures into actual SiC device manufacturing, and refining our production-worthy tools and process technologies for both the high-k film deposition and the SiC MOSFET fabrication. At the end of Phase II, we will have developed and demonstrated optimized SiC MOSFET devices, with significantly improved performance and reliability over present devices.