Technique for suppression of edge current in semiconductor devices
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A passive mechanism suppresses injection, into any active guard regions interposed between the edge of a photodiode array chip and the outer photodiode pixels or into the outer pixels themselves, of minority carrier current generated in the physically disrupted region at the edge of the semiconductor die created by cleaving, sawing or otherwise separating the chip from the remainder of the wafer on which the die was fabricated. A thin metallic layer covers all or part of the edge region, thereby creating a Schottky barrier. This barrier generates a depletion region in the adjacent semiconductor material. The depletion region inherently creates an energy band distribution which preferentially accelerates minority carriers generated or near the metal-semiconductor interface towards the metal, thereby suppressing collection of these carriers by any active regions of the guard structure or by the photodiode pixels.
-
Citations
25 Claims
-
1. (canceled)
-
2. An apparatus, comprising:
-
A semiconductor substrate;
a gate region, in said semiconductor substrate, and having a gate structure to form a first depletion region in said semiconductor substrate adjacent said gate region, when biased;
an edge which is formed by dicing; and
an edge structure, coupled to said edge formed by dicing, and forming a second depletion region in an area of said edge formed by dicing. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
-
-
12. A photo diode array, comprising:
-
a semiconductor substrate having at least one gate region on a first surface thereof, and a biasing electrode on a second opposite surface thereof, opposite to said first surface, said gate region and said biasing electrode being formed to create a depletion region near said gate region when biased by said biasing electrode, said semiconductor substrate also having at least one diced edge thereon; and
a second depletion layer forming region, coupled to said diced edge, and forming a second depletion region in an area near said diced edge, said second depletion region being effective to prevent minority carriers from said diced edge from traveling to said first depletion region. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
-
-
19. A method comprising:
-
forming a semiconductor device on a semiconductor substrate;
dicing the semiconductor device to form at least one diced edge on the semiconductor device separating multiple semiconductor devices; and
forming a first depletion region in an area near said diced edge. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
-
Specification