Nexperia has introduced a 10A 650V silicon carbide (SiC) industrial Schottky diode in a 2pin through-hole TO-220 plastic package.

Nexperia merged PIN Schotky SiC diode
Called PSC1065K, the company is not making its full data sheet public – the data brief reveals 22nC total capacitive charge (Vr=400V, 200A/μs, Tj=150°C), but not forward voltage.
Editor’s note, this did read 15nC – taken from the data brief which it transpires had an error.

It is one of the company’s ‘merged PiN Schottky’ diodes.

“Imperfections at the metal-semiconductor interface are responsible for leakage currents in SiC Schottky diodes,” according to the company. “While these can be reduced by using a thicker drift layer, it comes with the disadvantage of higher ohmic and thermal resistance.”

Nexperia PSC1065 merged Shotky SiC pn diode graphsNexperia PSC1065 merged SiC diode graphs

The merged structure, “effectively combines a Schottky diode and a p-n diode connected in parallel”, it explained. “p-doped areas are implanted in the drift zone of a conventional Schottky structure, forming a p-ohmic contact with the metal at the Schottky anode and a p-n junction with the lightly-doped SiC drift or epi-layer.”

Under reverse bias, the p-wells push the general area of maximum field strength downwards into the “almost defect-free” drift layer, it said, away from the metal barrier with its imperfections, reducing the overall leakage current.

The p-well’s placement and area compared with the size of the Schottky diode, and doping concentration, affect the end characteristics, with forward voltage drop traded against leakage and surge currents.

“As a result, an MPS device can operate at a higher breakdown voltage with the same leakage current and drift layer thickness,” said Nexperia.

In the pipeline are similar devices in the larger TO-247-2 through-hole package, as well as DPAK R2P and D2PAK R2P surface mount versions, then automotive-grade 650V and 1.2kV parts.

Applications are foreseen in battery-charging, uninterruptible power supplies and photovoltaic inverters.