Influence of carrier lifetime distribution on the current filament in high voltage diode

The current filament caused by strong dynamic avalanche during reverse recovery of a high voltage diode under extreme overstress conditions is an important factor of the device failure. The influence of carrier lifetime distribution on the current filament during reverse recovery of the high voltage diode was analyzed by the comparison between the uniform carrier lifetime distribution and the local low carrier lifetime distributions, and the variation process and the inhibition mechanism of the current filaments in diode were discussed. Electrothermal simulations show, how the local low carrier lifetime distributions can provoke the evolution of the anode-side current filaments and the appearance of multiple cathode-side current filaments. It is deduced that the low on-state plasma at the anode side is supposed to be the essential reason for the inhibition of the current filaments.