Impact of the structure on the thermal burnout effect induced by microwave pulses of PIN limiter diodes.

Positive-intrinsic-negative (PIN) limiters are widely used to protect sensitive components from leakage power itself and adjacent high-power injection. Being the core of a PIN limiter, the PIN diode is possible to be burnt out by the external microwave pulses. Here, using a parallel computing program for semiconductor multi-physics effects designed by ourselves, we studied the influence of the thickness of the I layer and the anode diameter of the PIN diode on the maximum temperature change curve of the PIN diode limiter. The damage threshold criterion in the numerical simulation was first studied by comparing experimental results with simulation results. Then, we determined the impact of the structure on the thermal burnout effect induced by microwave pulses of PIN limiter diodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]