The hard breakdown behaviors of boron-phosphorus compensated p-type and n-type Czochralski silicon solar cells were studied as functions of the type of conductivity, the net doping concentration and the temperature. We showed as expected from previous studies that the hard breakdown was governed by avalanche mechanisms (impact ionization) and that for a given net doping concentration the hard breakdown voltage was almost the same for both p-type and n-type solar cells, despite the different reported values for the electron and hole impact ionization coefficients. The studied compensated materials offered the opportunity to determine the hard breakdown voltages for samples with the same net doping concentration but different total amount of doping species. However no major effects of the dopant compensation were observed, the experimental data being described by the empirical expressions used for uncompensated silicon samples. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.