Transistor
The transistor is the fundamental building block of modern electronic devices, and is ubiquitous in modern electronic systems. Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented a field-effect transistor in 1926 but it was not possible to actually construct a working device at that time. The first practically implemented device was a point-contact transistor invented in 1947 by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley. The transistor revolutionized the field of electronics, and paved the way for smaller and cheaper radios, calculators, and computers, among other things. The transistor is on the list of IEEE milestones in electronics, and Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievement.
Insulated-gate bipolar transistor
There are two important device concepts concerning IGBTs. First one is the device concept discovered by J. D. Plummer in 1978. US Patent Re.33209 was issued for the device concept. The device proposed by J. D. Plummer is the same structure as a thyristor with a MOS gate. J. D. Plummer discovered and proposed that the device can be used as a transistor although the device operates as a thyristor in higher current density level. J. D. Plummer reported this fact in his technical paper: "A MOS-Controlled Triac Devices" B.W. Scharf and J.D. Plummer, 1978 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, SESSION XVI FAM 16.6. The device proposed by J. D. Plummer is referred, here, as “Plummer’s device.” On the other hand, Hans W. Becke invented and proposed, in 1980, another new device in which the thyristor action is completely eliminated under any device operating conditions although the basic device structure is the same as that proposed by J. D. Plummer. The device invented by Hans W. Becke is referred, here, as “Becke’s device” and is described in US Patent 4364073. The difference between “Plummer’s device” and “Becke’s device” is that “Plummer’s device” has the mode of thyristor action in its operation range and “Becke’s device” never has the mode of thyristor action in its entire operation range. This is a critical point, because the thyristor action is the same as so-called “latch-up.” “Latch-up” is the main cause of fatal device failure. Thus, theoretically, “Plummer’s device” never realizes a rugged or strong power device which has a large safe operating area. The large safe operating area can be achieved only after “latch-up” is completely suppressed and eliminated in the entire device operation range. Hence, the invention of the device by Hans W. Becke is decisively more important. And, this is the real IGBT. However, the Becke's patent (US Patent 4364073) did not disclose any measures to realize actual devices.