Silicon carbide split-gate MOSFET with merged Schottky barrier diode and reduced switching loss

A silicon carbide split-gate MOSFET (SG-MOSFET) is proposed in this paper, which features a Schottky barrier diode embedded above the JFET region between the split gates. Therefore, the proposed SG-MOSFET boasts a unipolar reverse conduction path with low turn-on voltage. Additionally, the gate-to-drain charge in the proposed device is greatly reduced, owing to the presence of the Schottky anode that is shorted to the source contact. The influence of key device parameters has been studied via device simulation using Sentaurus TCAD. Comprehensive comparisons between the proposed SG-MOSFET and the conventional MOSFET are made. Apart from the superior reverse conduction characteristics, the SG-MOSFET exhibits a significant lower switching loss thanks to both the low gate-to-drain charge and the elimination of charging/discharging currents for external freewheeling diodes.