High-power conductivity-modulated FET's (COMFET's) with a p-type channel

In previous work, a conductivity-modulated field-effect transistor (COMFET) having drastically reduced on-resistance was described; that device was based on n-channel MOS technology. In this letter, we report the development of a complementary device-the p-channel COMFET. These new p-channel COMFET's have demonstrated dc on-resistance values as low as 0.07 Ω at 20 A (for a 3 mm × 3 mm pellet), while providing forward blocking voltages of 200-400 V. To our knowledge, this on-resistance value (normalized to the same active area) is lower than that of any p-channel power MOSFET (even those with blocking voltages of only 100 V) and as much as 30 times less than that of a p-channel MOSFET with a comparable blocking-voltage capability. Using suitable minority-carrier-lifetime control techniques, drain-current-decay times have been reduced from ≈ 30 µs to below 1 µs.