Transient device simulation of neutron-induced failure in IGBT: A first step for developing a compact predictive model

In atmospheric environment, neutron-induced single event effects are known to be a concern for electronic devices reliability. The effect of atmospheric radiation on integrated technologies (mainly single event upsets and latchup on CMOS) has been extensively investigated during the last 3 decades and testing standards have even been developed (e.g. JESD89a, IEC TS 62396). Moreover at present, a good knowledge of the physical mechanisms at stake allows to use efficient prediction tools which are now mature enough to be transferred to academic and industrial end-users [1,2]. Those tools are in particular useful to predict the expected failure rate of a given technology with very little technological knowledge. Atmospheric radiation-induced power devices failures are not treated as well. Even though numerous studies have been performed, no standard exist for testing devices in atmospheric environment. On the other hand, the complexity of the failure modes at play makes it very difficult to develop efficient prediction tools. In this paper, an analysis of the physical mechanisms at play is performed using 2D TCAD simulation tool. In particular, the sensitive region as well as the role of the temperature has been investigated. Moreover the simulated failure mode is compared to the phenomenological model described in the literature. The goal of this paper is to determine whether some simplifications in the triggering mode for a failure can be done in order to ease the development of analytical prediction tools.