US 4,961,100 AGranted

Bidirectional field effect semiconductor device and circuit

AssigneeGeneral Electric Company

InventorsBantval J. Baliga, Hsueh-Rong Chang, Edward K. Howell

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Abstract

An insulated field effect semiconductor device having source and drain regions extending to opposed surfaces of its semiconductor body is bidirectional and capable of blocking voltages in either of two opposing polarities and comprises a four terminal device having source and drain electrodes disposed on the opposed surfaces and a base electrode all ohmically connected to corresponding portions of the semiconductor body. An insulated gate is provided in a trench which extends into the semiconductor body for controlling the conductivity of a channel region extending within the base region between the source and drain regions. The device is free of source-to-base and drain-to-base short circuits. Control circuits enable this device to conduct or block both polarities of a high current AC voltage applied across its source and drain terminals while preventing undesired avalanche breakdown within the device.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A field effect semiconductor device comprising:

a semiconductor body having first and second, opposed major surfaces including:
a first main terminal region of one conductivity type extending to said first major surface of said body,
a second main terminal region of said one conductivity type extending to said second main surface of said body, and
a base region of an opposite conductivity type disposed between and spacing apart said first and second main terminal regions and having a channel portion extending to said first surface of said semiconductor body;
an insulated gate electrode disposed on said first surface adjacent to said base region between said first and second main terminal regions for controlling the conductivity of said channel portion between said first and second main terminal regions for carriers of said one conductivity type;
a first main electrode disposed on said first major surface and ohmically connected to said first main terminal region;
a second main electrode disposed on said second major surface and ohmically connected to said second main terminal region;
and
a base electrode ohmically connected to said base region;
and
said device being free of first main terminal region-to-base region and second main terminal region-to-base region short circuits whereby said device is bidirectional and the conductivity of said channel region is determined by the potential of said insulated gate electrode relative to said base region.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.