Current sensors and methods of improving accuracy thereof
AssigneeInfineon Technologies Austria AG
InventorsMinghao Jin, Oliver Blank, Quaglino Roberto
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for operating a circuit includes providing a three terminal main transistor and a four terminal sense transistor having a field plate. The method includes simultaneously applying a gate pulse on a gate terminal of the sense transistor and a gate terminal of the main transistor, and applying a field plate pulse on a field plate of the sense transistor. The field plate pulse is synchronous and in phase with the gate pulse.
Claims21
A method for operating a circuit comprising:
- providing a three terminal main transistor;
- providing a four terminal sense transistor comprising a field plate;
- simultaneously applying a gate pulse on a gate terminal of the sense transistor and a gate terminal of the main transistor;
- and
- applying a field plate pulse on a field plate of the sense transistor, wherein the field plate pulse is synchronous and in phase with the gate pulse.
A circuit comprising:
- a three terminal power transistor;
- and
- a four terminal sense transistor comprising a field plate, wherein a drain terminal of the four terminal sense transistor is coupled to a drain terminal of the three terminal power transistor, wherein a gate terminal of the four terminal sense transistor is coupled to a gate terminal of the three terminal power transistor, wherein the field plate is capacitively coupled to a drift region of the four terminal sense transistor, and wherein the field plate is not coupled to the other terminals of the four terminal sense transistor.
A method for performing an initialization of a circuit, the method comprising:
- providing a three terminal main transistor;
- providing a four terminal sense transistor comprising a field plate;
- applying a gate pulse on a gate terminal of the sense transistor and a gate terminal of the main transistor;
- measuring a ratio of a current through the main transistor and a current through the sense transistor;
- and
- determining a field plate bias needed to be applied at the field plate to maintain the ratio of the current through the main transistor to the current through the sense transistor with a target ratio.
A semiconductor device comprising:
- a three terminal main transistor disposed in a substrate and comprising a source contact, a drain contact, and a gate contact, the main transistor comprising
- a first plurality of trenches disposed at a front side in a first region of the substrate, wherein each of the first plurality of trenches comprises a gate line coupled to the gate contact, and wherein portions of each of the first plurality of trenches not filled with material of the gate line comprise a dielectric material;
- and
- a four terminal sense transistor disposed in the substrate and comprising a source contact, a drain contact, a gate contact, and a field plate contact, the sense transistor comprising
- a second plurality of trenches disposed at the front side in a second region of the substrate, wherein each of the second plurality of trenches comprises a gate line coupled to the gate contact, and wherein each of the second plurality of trenches comprises a field plate line coupled to the field plate contact, wherein the total number of trenches in the second plurality of trenches is different from the total number of trenches in the first plurality of trenches.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.