A novel Body Effect Modulation Lateral Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (BEM-LIGBT) on the thin SOI layer featuring with a metal resistor connected with the body region and the n plus region without adding extra mask steps is experimentally proposed in this paper. In the proposed device structure, the electron current is the dominant component of the total current and it can be improved by increasing the resistance of the metal resistor, which is verified by the theoretical derivation and numerous TCAD simulations. The total current density of the proposed high voltage (above 690 V) BEM-LIGBT is increased by about 65% at V-GE = 5 V, compared with the conventional structure on the same SOI layer. In addition, the BEM-LIGBT is successfully used in the level-shift circuit for 600 V high voltage gate drive integrated circuit (HVIC). The width of the dV/dt noise pulse in the circuit is decreased by about 45% by using the BEM-LIGBT. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.