AN1226
APPLICATION NOTE
UNDERSTANDING LDMOS DEVICE FUNDAMENTALS
John Pritiskutch - Brett Hanson
1. ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the struc tural aspects o f two basic types of RF power MOSFE TS: the DMO S and
the LDMOS. The comparison of the DMOS and LDMOS structures reveals the basic fundamentals of the
RF MOSFET device technology and the challenges that exist to improve their RF performance and
reliability.
To date, MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) research has predominately
focused on VLSI technology, which has been d riven by computer IC market press ures. VLSI devices
employ physical structures similar to RF power MOSFETs, but VLSI devices utilize much smaller physical
dimensions. The salient differences between RF MOSFETs and VLSI devices are larger channel lengths,
greater junction depths and thicker gate oxides, employed by the former, as required to obtain the high
power needed for most RF applications. Todays power RF applications need higher gain and more power
without complicated peripheral circuitry. The RF market is being driven by the nee d for higher reliability,
gain, linearity and output power requirements that will be constrained by the application’s DC power
supply limitations. Most high power RF applications are using DC supply voltages ranging from 20 to 50
volts.
2. MOSFETs.
There are two major structural categories of RF MOSFETs in use today. These structures, DMOS
(double-diffused Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) and LDMOS (laterally diffused
Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor), have unique beha viors: semiconductor process and geometry dependent.
These acronyms can be confusing, especially since the acronym LDMOS is a concatenation of acronyms
that have been used to designate various aspects of the lateral device and often stands for lateral current
(L) double-diffused MOS (DMOS). These devices can be created in two common types, the PMOS
(p-type MOSFET) and NMOS (n-type MOSFE T), but this paper will foc us on NMOS only. Figures 1 and
2 depict the physical structures of DMOS and LDMOS, respec tively. From these figures, it is apparent
LDMOS is predominately a lateral, surface-effect device, while the DMOS geometry incorporates large
vertical and lateral structures forcing the time and current density of the spatial dependent vector to
contain significant vertical and lateral component.
Both of these MOSFETs are composed of three terminal devices (assuming substrate shorted to source),
commonly identified as t he source, gate and drain, where the voltage on the gate controls the curren t
flowing from the drain to the source. The mos t common circuit configuration for these devices is the
common source (CS) configuration, which is comparable (in some respects) to the common emitter
configuration of the bipolar transistor. Considering this, any frequency-dependent source to ground
connection will introduce negative feedback. Other configurations are used but under the CS
configuration the drain is connected to the high DC voltage while the source is grounded. The gate is used
to induce a field-enhanced depletion region between the source and drain, and thereby creating a
“channel”. The acronym NMOS was derived from the fact that the p-type channel has been inverted,
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AN1226 - APPLICATION NOTE
creating an effective n-type material due to the depletion of the holes in the p-type channel. A high
concentration of electrons is left with energy near the conduction band due to the barrier lowering caused
by the gate field, and the electrons can the n accelerate due to the field produced by the drai n to source
biasing. The details of the above mentioned gate-induced channel are critical to MOS operation. The
LDMOS channel is predominately def ined by the physical size of the gate st ructure (ignoring seconda ry
effects due to diffusion vagaries) that overlies the graded p-type threshold adjust, implantation and
diffusion area. The source and drain regions are on the laterally opposing sides of the gate area, and the
diffusion process may produc e an undercut region below th e gate due to the single-step l ate ral di ffusion
process that defines the source and drain regions. The source and drain regions under bias create
depletion regions that are connected by the gate induced depletion region in the p-body, and this
connection defines the “effective channel length” which is a measure of the distance between the source
and drain depletion edges. For NMOS, the depletion region is a region where the high electric field lowers
the energy barrier to the electron conduction band. Once the barrier is lowered sufficiently, current easily
flows between source and drain. LDMOS channel current is controlled by the vertical electric field induced
by the gate and the lateral field that exists between the source and drain.
Figure 1: Basic DMOS Structure
Gate terminal
Polysilicon
Cgs
Source ter minal
N+ source
P Body
Drain-Sourc e depletion width
N Epi
N+ substrate
Drain terminal
Gate Oxide
Cdg
The depletion region between the source and drain is dependent on the junction doping profiles. In
general, the depletion region will reach farther into a lower doped region than a higher doped region. The
depletion region will extend into the channel region reducing the actual channel length formed by diffusion
to the effective channel length. This creates the possibility of undesired behavior in the form of hot carrier
injection due to the high electric fields, drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL) and short channel effects
(SCE). A carefully designed, lightly doped drain, and threshold adjust p-body (that is graded
appropriately) will mitigate the undesired behavior.
In contrast to the LDMOS , the DMO S structure cons ists of an n-type subst rate on wh ich is grown an nepitaxial layer that forms the large drain region. The gate region is formed on the surface that overlies the
graded p-type body implantation a nd diffusion area. The source re gions are implant ed and diffused on
either side of the gate to form two separate transistors with a common drain region. The depletion regions
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AN1226 - APPLICATION NOTE
will form around the source and p-body and these depletion regions can be connected by the field induced
depletion region formed by the gate. The depletion region con necting the drain a nd source def ines the
channel and its dimensions are determined by the source and body doping.
Another fundamental difference between the DMOS and LDMOS is the characteristic of the source
connection to the outside world. The source of a DMOS is located at the surface of the die, while the drain
is formed by the substrate region and therefore wire bonds must be used to connect the source to the
external circuitry. These wire bonds form a dependant frequency element reducing gain at high
frequencies due to negative feedback. In addition, the common surface connection dictates that insulating
material (BeO) can be used to isolate the drain. This insulating material is a thermal impedance that must
be considered for power dissipation. The source of the LDMOS is also on the surface, however its
common connection is formed by diffusing a highly doped p-type region, which acts like an ohmic
connection from the source a t the surf ace of the sub strate, e liminating the need for parasitic wire bonds.
This method also eliminates the ceramic interface (that exists in DMOS) and improves the junction to case
thermal resistance, and therefore, relieves some of the associated power dissipation issues.
In summary, the LDMOS channel is determined by the gate length, source diffusion and drain diffusion.
Figure 2: Basic LDMOS Str uc ture
Cgs
Source-Sinker short
N+ source
P+ Threshold adjust
P+ Sinker
P Epi
P+ substrate
Source terminal
Gate terminal
Polysilicon
Gate Oxide
Cdg
Drai n terminal
N- Drain
N+ Drain
Drai n-Source depletion
width
The DMOS channel is determined by the lateral source diffusion edge and p-body diffusion edge. The
differences in the electrical f ield distributions i nfluence eac h of the M OSFET’s beh aviors due to the fac t
that the DMOS has significant lateral and vertica l components, w hereas the LDM OS is pre dominately a
lateral field device. The differences in the source connections are significant in terms of the high frequency
behavior, in that the DMOS will have greater negative feedback. These inherent differences establish the
appropriate domain of applications for each of these MOSFET structures.
The salient parameters that distinguish the differences in the circuit-level performance (as used in SPICE)
for DMOS and LDMOS are V
R
. In contrast to DMOS, the LDMOS conta ins an additional p-type sinker element which h as a
DS(on)
graded doping concentration subsequen t to diffusio n. This is a portion of R
element is critical to reducing R
gate overlap, reduce the input capacitance (C
LDMOS and DMOS in terms of circuit performance pertains to the feedback capacitance (C
, C
DS(on)
DS(on)
, and C
ISS
. The shallow junctions of the LDMOS and subsequent reduction of
(see Figures 1 and 2). V
RSS
DS(on)
). One of the most significant differences between
ISS
is the inverse of
DS(on)
and optimization of this
RSS
). C
RSS
in
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AN1226 - APPLICATION NOTE
the LDMOS structure is primarily com posed of the gate drain ov erlap which is min imal compared to t he
DMOS. The DMOS C
is larger because the entire Drain contributes to the C
RSS
The other significant
RSS.
parameters that are important for circuit behavior are not critically dependent on the DM OS and LDM O S
specific structures. For example, the transconductance is directly proportional to the channel width/length
ratio, and the voltage threshold is always determined by the doping of the channel, gate oxide thickness...,
etc.
3. CONCLUSION
This brief description of the fundamental st ructure of the LDMO S and DM OS invit es a co mpa rison of the
critical parameters which determine the unique behavior of t hese two different MOSFET dev ices. From
this comparison one can speculate on the qualitat ive aspect of LDMO S and DMO S. For exam ple, if contemplating which structure is most susceptible to drain to s ource punch-through, one would consider the
depletion regions. The LDMOS channel length and d oping must preven t the drain and s ource depletion
edges from meeting. The geometry and doping profiles are the keys to understanding many other issues
as well.
The following paper in this series (AN1228 - Related LDMOS Device Parameters to RF Performance)
investigates the root causes of the various failure mechanisms that are endemic to DMOS and LDMOS.
This investigation will require the understanding of the microscopic aspects of semiconductor physics and
processing and will therefore enligh ten the reader on some of the esoteric phenome na that exist with
MOSFETs.
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