A REVIEW OF THE TECHNIQUES USED FOR MODELING SINGLE-EVENT EFFECTS IN POWER MOSFETS

Heavy ions can trigger catastrophic failure modes in power metal-oxide -semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFET's). Single-event effec ts (SEE), namely, single-event burnout (SEE), and single-event gate ru pture (SEGR), of power MOSFET's are catastrophic failure mechanisms th at are initiated by the passage of a heavy ion through the device stru cture. Various analytical, semianalytical, and simulation models have been developed to help explain these phenomena. This paper presents a review of these models and explains their merits and limitations. New results are included to illustrate the approaches.