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A normally-off SiC-JFET/GaN-HEMT cascode device is recently proposed, featuring a cascode configuration that incorporates a high-voltage (HV, e.g., 1200 V) silicon-carbide (SiC) junction field effect transistor (JFET) delivering the HV blocking capability and a low-voltage (LV) enhanced-mode (E-mode) gallium-nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) providing the normally-off gate control. This all-wide-bandgap device exhibits superior thermal stability and high switching speed compared to its counterparts, e.g., the SiC/Si cascode device. In this article, we study short-circuit (SC) characteristics of a 1200-V/80-mΩ SiC/GaN cascode device by considering the interactions between the SiC and GaN devices. The single-event SC withstand time (SCWT) of the demonstrated SiC/GaN cascode device is tested to be ∼3 μs under a dc-bus voltage (Vdc) of 600 V when the turn-on gate voltage (VG-on) is set to 5 V. The SC failure occurs due to the formation of hot spots induced by thermal-runaway leakage currents inside the SiC JFET. The SCWT of the cascode device could be improved by applying a moderate VG-on (e.g., SCWT = ∼6.5 μs at VG-on = 3.5 V under v dc = 600 V) without affecting the on-state resistance (r on). However, it is identified that current oscillations tend to be triggered during the SC period when VG-on is too low (e.g., lower than 3 V). The oscillation behavior is attributed to the energy stored in the interconnection parts between the SiC and GaN devices. The harmful oscillations could be suppressed by applying higher VG-on, which drives the SiC JFET into low-transconductance mode by modulating the drain-to-source voltage (VDS-G) of the LV GaN HEMT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 650-V/84-mΩ normally-off GaN/SiC cascode device is demonstrated with systematic static and dynamic characterizations. The cascode device features a low-voltage enhancement-mode (E-mode) gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) to enable normally-off gate control, and a 650-V normally-on silicon carbide (SiC) JFET provides the high-voltage blocking capability. The GaN/SiC cascode device exhibits many application-desired behaviors, including reverse conduction capability, avalanche breakdown capability, thermally stable threshold voltage, low input/output capacitances, no dynamic RON degradation, and negligible dynamic VTH shift. In addition, a customized double-pulse test board is built to evaluate the switching performance of this cascode device and other 650-V SiC-based power devices. This cascode device adopting low-voltage GaN HEMT has low QG×RON and exhibits excellent switching performance. The switching losses (EON and EOFF) are much smaller than that of the 650-V Si/SiC cascode device and comparable to that of the state-of-the-art 650-V SiC MOSFETs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systematic characterizations of a cascode device with a low-voltage enhance-mode (E-mode) p-GaN gate high-electron mobility transistor as the control device and a high-voltage (HV) depletion-mode (D-mode) silicon carbide junction field effect transistor (JFET) as the voltage blocking device are presented in this article. The demonstrated device with a breakdown voltage rating of 1200 V and a static on-resistance (RON) of 100 mΩ features small device capacitances with fast switching speed, avalanche breakdown capability, thermally stable threshold voltage (VTH), and no dynamic RON degradation. To identify its safe operation in the off-state with a high drain bias, the off-state middle point voltage (VM) between the E-mode device drain and D-mode device source is investigated. A relatively low off-state VM is achieved under both static and dynamic modes. In addition to the device-level characterization, a custom-designed double-pulse test circuit is built to evaluate the transient switching performance of the cascode device. Optimal gate drive conditions are proposed to 1) overcome the drain bias induced positive dynamic VTH shift; and 2) suppress the increased dynamic off-state leakage current (IOFF) induced by on-state hole injection. Under 800 V/16 A testing conditions, high switching speed with the drain voltage peak slew rates of 72 V/ns during turn-on and 121 V/ns during turn-off is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3-D edge termination design and analytic model for specific on-resistance ( R \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON,\text {sp}}) versus breakdown voltage (BV) of a 700-V triple reduced surface field lateral double-diffused MOSFET (LDMOS) with n-type top layer are presented in this paper. To eliminate the premature avalanche breakdown induced by the electric field crowding and the local charge imbalance in the transition region of the source-centered edge termination structure, 3-D numerical simulations and experiments are performed to investigate two crucial parameters L1 and L2 in the layout of the transition region. It is observed that optimal electric field distribution is obtained and breakdown positions are transferred to the active region at L1 = 30~\mu \text{m} and L2 = 1~\mu \text{m} . On the other hand, an analytic model is developed to describe the relation between R \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON,\text {sp}} and BV, which is obtained as R \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON,\text {sp}} = 5.93 \times 10^{-6} \times 22({T}/298)^{1.7} \times \text {BV}^{2} and theoretically verifies that the fabricated device has achieved optimized R \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON,\text {sp}} and BV. Compared with our previous paper, the LDMOS experimentally demonstrated improved performance with R \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON,\text {sp}} of 86.49 \textm\Omega ~\cdot cm2 and BV of 805 V, which is leading performance for the 700-V applications in published data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 700 V dual-buried-layer n-channel lateral double-diffused MOSFET (DB-nLDMOS) based on substrate termination technology (STT) is presented and experimentally demonstrated in this paper. The termination region is well analyzed and designed to avoid the premature avalanche breakdown caused by the curved junction. The 2-D and 3-D numerical simulations have been performed to optimize the three key parameters of \Delta L1,\Delta L2, and \Delta L3 which impact on breakdown voltage (BV) greatly in the termination region. The simulation results show that the electric field peak is reduced and premature avalanche breakdown is avoided at the curved abrupt p-well/n-well junction with the STT. The experimental results demonstrate that low $R_{{\mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON},\mathrm {sp}}} of 105.6 \textm\Omega \cdot \mathrm cm^2 based on Ld and high BV of 788 V are achieved by the DB-nLDMOS. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]