High voltage Schottky barrier diode

A semiconductor device having a high voltage rectifying metal-to-semiconductor junction, which comprises:

• a semiconductor body having a substrate of a first type conductivity;
• a semiconductor layer of said first type conductivity adjoining said substrate and forming a surface of said body, said semiconductor layer comprising first and second adjacent sublayers of said first type conductivity and having different doping concentrations, a surface of the first sublayer forming the surface of said body and the second sublayer being located between said first sublayer and the substrate;
• a low resistance ohmic connection to the semiconductor layer of said first type conductivity;
• a metal layer on the surface of the first sublayer which forms the body surface and in electrical contact with a portion of said surface to form a rectifying junction with said first sublayer;
• and
• a plurality of isolated discrete regions of a second type conductivity opposite to that of the first, said regions being distributed along the boundary region between said first and second sublayers of said semiconductor layer and extending at least beneath that portion of the semiconductor body surface contacted by said metal layer.