A review of the 'shorted emitter' principle as applied to p-n-p-n silicon controlled rectifiers.

For several years the so-called 'shorted emitter' principle has been used widely to improve the performance of silicon-controlled rectifiers.
In this paper the evolution of the emitter shunt is surveyed, and a review of simple theoretical principles is followed by an account of experiments which substantiate the general theory.
Since the publication of a paper by Aldrich and Holonyak (1959) which outlined a method of improving the temperature and rate of rise performance of the thyristor, many references to this so-called shorted emitter technique have appeared in the literature (Gentry et al. 1964, Gentry et al. 1965, Ruhl 1970, Chu 1970). However, in spite of the fact that the technique is now widely used in the production of commercial thyristors, little detail has been given in many of these references and no comprehensive survey is available.
Over the past few years, in our laboratories, a number of investigations have been carried out, and techniques have been established to make use of this shorted emitter principle.
It now seems an appropriate time to review this important field of semiconductor technology and give a brief account of experiments which have substantiated the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]