High-Voltage Device Technologies in Silicon-On-Insulator Systems
Summary
High-voltage devices built on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates have emerged as pivotal components in power electronics, offering intrinsic advantages in breakdown performance, reduced parasitic capacitances and enhanced thermal isolation. By leveraging a buried oxide layer, SOI devices can support higher electric fields in the drift region while maintaining a compact form factor. Key architectures include lateral insulated gate bipolar transistors (LIGBTs) and advanced MOSFETs, where careful engineering of doping profiles, field plates and buried layers enables voltage ratings well above 600 V. Electric-field modulation techniques, such as assisted depletion regions and p-buried layers, optimise the spatial distribution of the field, increasing breakdown strength without unduly extending the drift length. Concurrently, innovations in gate geometry – combining trench and planar structures – and integrated diode paths have addressed snap-back effects and reverse-conducting requirements. Together, these advances support faster switching, lower on-state losses and improved short-circuit robustness, underpinning applications in electric vehicles, renewable-energy converters and smart grid interfaces.
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High-Voltage Device Technologies in Silicon-On-Insulator Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in high-voltage device technologies in silicon-on-insulator systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI): A semiconductor structure featuring a buried oxide layer that electrically isolates a thin silicon device layer from the bulk substrate.
Lateral Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (LIGBT): A high-voltage device combining MOS-gate control with bipolar conduction, arranged laterally on the substrate for on-chip power integration.
Breakdown Voltage: The maximum reverse-bias voltage that a device can sustain before avalanche conduction occurs.
Drift Region: The lightly doped semiconductor region through which the electric field is sustained to support high voltage.
Snap-back Effect: A sudden reduction in device voltage during turn-on, caused by uncontrolled carrier injection, which can compromise safe operation.
References
- Four Hybrid Gates SOI Lateral Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor With Improved Carrier Controllability. IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society (2023).
- Novel Low Loss LIGBT With Assisted Depletion N-Region and P-Buried Layer. IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society (2021).
- A Snapback-Free and Low Turn-Off Loss Reverse-Conducting SOI-LIGBT With Embedded Diode and MOSFET. IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society (2019).
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