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Current Collapse and High-Electric-Field Reliability of Unpassivated GaN/AlGaN/GaN HEMTs.
- Source :
-
IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices . Dec2006, Vol. 53 Issue 12, p2932-2941. 10p. 12 Graphs. - Publication Year :
- 2006
-
Abstract
- Long-term ON-state and OFF-state high-electric-field stress results are presented for unpassivated GaN/AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors on SiC substrates. Because of the thin GaN cap layer, devices show minimal current-collapse effects prior to high-electric-field stress, despite the fact that they are not passivated. This comes at the price of a relatively high gate-leakage current. Under the assumption that donor-like electron traps are present within the GaN cap, two-dimensional numerical device simulations provide an explanation for the influence of the GaN cap layer on current collapse and for the correlation between the latter and the gate-leakage current. Both ON-state and OFF-state stresses produce simultaneous current-collapse increase and gate-leakage-current decrease, which can be interpreted to be the result of gate-drain surface degradation and reduced gate electron injection. This study shows that although the thin GaN cap layer is effective in suppressing surface-related dispersion effects in virgin devices, it does not, per se, protect the device from high-electric-field degradation, and it should, to this aim, be adopted in conjunction with other technological solutions like surface passivation, prepassivation surface treatments, and/or field-plate gate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00189383
- Volume :
- 53
- Issue :
- 12
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 23334362
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1109/TED.2006.885681