Investigation of short-circuit failure limited by dynamic-avalanche capability in 600-V punchthrough IGBTs

Short-circuit-failure energy of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) is generally known to be constant, depending on the thermal capacity of the devices. However, apart from the intrinsic thermal-failure limit, a premature short-circuit failure was observed for 600-V punchthrough (PT) IGBTs at turn-off transition. The observed failure seems irrelevant to the electrical-failure mode as well as the thermal-failure mode, rather, it depends on the dynamic-breakdown voltage of the device. In this paper, with comprehensive investigations into an instant short-circuit failure, it is shown that the observed short-circuit failure of the PT IGBTs results from insufficient avalanche capability, which is initiated by dynamic-avalanche breakdown and can severely degrade the short-circuit ruggedness of the PT IGBTs independent of the duration of the short-circuit event.