Electrical Characteristic of Power MOSFET with Zener Diode for Battery Protection IC

Abstract

A high power MOSFET switch based on a 0.35 μm CMOS process has been developed for the protection IC of a rechargeable battery. In this process, a vertical double diffused MOS (VDMOS) using 3 μm-thick epi-taxy layer is integrated with a Zener diode. The p-n+ Zener diode is fabricated on top of the VDMOS and used to protect the VDMOS from high voltage switching and electrostatic discharge voltage. A fully integrated digital circuit with power devices has also been developed for a rechargeable battery. The experiment indicates that both breakdown voltage and leakage current depend on the doping concentration of the Zener diode. The dependency of the breakdown voltage on doping concentration is in a trade-off relationship with that of the leakage current. The breakdown voltage is obtained to exceed 14 V and the leakage current is controlled under 0.5 μA. The proposed integrated module with the application of the power MOSFET indicates the high performance of the protection IC, where the overcharge delay time and detection voltage are controlled within 1.1 s and 4.2 V, respectively.