A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor body having opposite first and second surfaces, a drift or base zone in the semiconductor body and an oxygen diffusion barrier in the semiconductor body. The drift or base zone is located between the first surface and the oxygen diffusion barrier and directly adjoins the oxygen diffusion barrier. The semiconductor device further includes first and second load terminal contacts. At least one of the first and the second load terminal contacts is electrically connected to the semiconductor body through the first surface.

An integrated circuit includes an NMOS transistor, a PMOS transistor and a vertical bipolar transistor. The vertical bipolar transistor has an intrinsic base with a band barrier at least 25 meV high at a surface boundary of the intrinsic base, except at an emitter-base junction with an emitter, and except at a base-collector junction with a collector. The intrinsic base may be laterally surrounded by an extrinsic base with a higher dopant density than the intrinsic base, wherein a higher dopant density provides the band barrier at lateral surfaces of the intrinsic base. A gate may be disposed on a gate dielectric layer over a top surface boundary of the intrinsic base adjacent to the emitter. The gate is configured to accumulate the intrinsic base immediately under the gate dielectric layer, providing the band barrier at the top surface boundary of the intrinsic base.

A method of manufacturing semiconductor devices in a semiconductor wafer comprises forming charge compensation device structures in the semiconductor wafer. An electric characteristic related to the charge compensation device structures is measured. At least one of proton irradiation and annealing parameters are adjusted based on the measured electric characteristic. The semiconductor wafer is irradiated with protons and annealed based on the at least one of the adjusted proton irradiation and annealing parameters. Laser beam irradiation parameters are adjusted with respect to different positions on the semiconductor wafer based on the measured electric characteristic. The semiconductor wafer is irradiated with a photon beam at the different positions on the wafer based on the photon beam irradiation parameters.

A method of manufacturing an insulated gate bipolar transistor includes providing trenches extending from a first surface to a layer section in a semiconductor portion, introducing impurities into mesa sections between the trenches, and forming, from the introduced impurities, second portions of doped regions separated from source regions by body regions. The source regions are electrically connected to an emitter electrode. The second portions have a second mean net impurity concentration exceeding at least ten times a first mean net impurity concentration in first portions of the doped layer. The first portions extend from the body regions to the layer section, respectively.

Methods of maintaining a state of a memory cell without interrupting access to the memory cell are provided, including applying a back bias to the cell to offset charge leakage out of a floating body of the cell, wherein a charge level of the floating body indicates a state of the memory cell; and accessing the cell.

A method of manufacturing a silicon carbide semiconductor device includes a step of preparing a silicon carbide substrate having a first main surface and a second main surface located opposite to the first main surface, a step of forming a doped region in the silicon carbide substrate by doping the first main surface with an impurity, a step of forming a first protecting film on the doped region at the first main surface, and a step of activating the impurity included in the doped region by annealing with the first protecting film having been formed, the step of forming a first protecting film including a step of disposing a material which will form the first protecting film and in which the concentration of a metal element is less than or equal to 5 g/kg on the first main surface.

In a method of further enhancing the performance of a narrow active cell IE type trench gate IGBT having the width of active cells narrower than that of inactive cells, it is effective to shrink the cells so that the IE effects are enhanced. However, when the cells are shrunk simply, the switching speed is reduced due to increased gate capacitance. A cell formation area of the IE type trench gate IGBT is basically composed of first linear unit cell areas having linear active cell areas, second linear unit cell areas having linear hole collector areas and linear inactive cell areas disposed therebetween.

An n.sup. drift layer is a parallel pn layer having an n-type region and a p-type region are alternately arranged in the direction parallel to the main surface so as to come into contact with each other, and have a width in a direction parallel to the main surface of the substrate which is less than a length in a direction perpendicular to the main surface of the substrate. A second-main-surface-side lower end portion of the p-type region has a structure in which a high-concentration lower end portion and a low-concentration lower end portion of a p-type low-concentration region are repeated at a predetermined pitch in the direction parallel to the main surface of the substrate. It is possible to provide a super junction MOS semiconductor device which can improve a trade-off relationship between turn-off loss and turn-off dv/dt and improve avalanche resistance.

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes: forming a lattice defect layer in a substrate having a front surface region where a bipolar element of a pn junction type is formed and a rear surface region opposing the front surface region, the lattice defect layer being formed by injecting a charged particle to a first region in the rear surface region of the substrate; forming a laminated region, in which a first conductivity type impurity region and a second conductivity type impurity region are sequentially laminated from a rear surface side of the substrate toward the first region, in a second region in the rear surface region of the substrate, the first region being positioned deeper than the second region from a rear surface of the substrate; and selectively activating the laminated region by laser annealing after the formation of the laminated region and the lattice defect layer.

A semiconductor device is disclosed. In a surface layer of a front surface of an n-type semiconductor substrate, an anode layer is provided in an element activation portion and an annular p-type guard ring and an n-type high-concentration surface region are provided in an annular termination breakdown voltage region which surrounds the outer circumference of the anode layer. The impurity concentration of the n-type high-concentration surface region is higher than that of the semiconductor substrate and is lower than that of the p-type guard ring. The depth of the n-type high-concentration surface region is less than that of the guard ring. The anode layer and the guard ring are formed while the oxygen concentration of the semiconductor substrate is set to be equal to or more than 110.sup.16/cm.sup.3 and equal to or less than 110.sup.18/cm.sup.3.