dc.description.abstract | The degradation in dynamic on-state performance is a great concern to limit the application of GaN-based power transistors and is regarded as one of the most critical issues to be solved for high power switching applications. When a GaN power transistor was operated as a high frequency on and off switch, the off-state bias duration serves as a filling pulse and causes an increase in RDS,on.
A measurement methodology involving the synchronous switching of VG and VD was proposed for determining transient Id-Vg curves after an AlGaN/GaN HFET endures high VDS off-state stress. The measurement results indicated slow electron detrapping behavior. The trap profile was determined as (EC–0.6 eV), an acceptor-like trap was widely observed in the AlGaN/GaN HFETs and some research results have indicated that this trap originates from epitaxial defects. The proposed method is further used to study the influence of the trap in AlGaN/GaN HFETs with different buffer layers: a carbon-doped buffer and an Al0.05Ga0.95N back-barrier layer. Two HFETs demonstrated similar transient behaviors but different trends by enduring various VDS stress level. For a device with a C-doped buffer layer, the amount of threshold voltage shift becomes saturated with increasing VDS stress; however, a device with an Al0.05Ga0.95N back-barrier layer does not. A simulation tool was used to analyze the trap behaviors and close agreement was seen between measured and simulated.
The correlation between off-state leakage current and dynamic RDS,on transients in AlGaN/GaN HFETs with and without a gate insulator under various stress conditions was also examined. The RDS,on transients in a Schottky-gate HFET (SGHFET) and a metal-insulator-semiconductor HFET (MISHFET) were observed after applying various VDS stress biases. The gate insulator in the MISHFET effectively reduced the electron injection from the gate, thereby mitigating the degradation in dynamic switching performance. However, at relaxation times exceeding 10 ms, additional detrapping occurred in both SGHFET and MISHFET when the applied stress exceeded a critical voltage level, resulting in resistive leakage current build-up and the formation of hot carriers. These high-energy carriers act as ionized traps in the channel or buffer layers, which subsequently caused additional trapping and detrapping to occur in both HFETs during the dynamic switching test conducted.
Gate insulator is an effective mean to reduce the gate leakage current also alleviate the dynamic degradation. However, additional insulator/semiconductor interface states are introduced and to be considered as another origins to trap electrons. To solve this problem, a AlGaN/GaN heterostructure with in-situ AlN as cap layer is proposed. By depositing ALD-Al2O3 on the proposed structure subjected to high temperature oxidization, the interface state can be reduced and the distribution of Dit is determined to be in the range between 1.4 × 1012 to 2.6 × 1013 eV-1•cm-3, which is an approximately one-order-of-magnitude reduction compared with a structure that is not subjected to the oxidization process.
The use of field plate can effectively reduce the electric-field strength, so the breakdown voltage can be increased and the dynamic degradation can be alleviated. A measurement methodology involving high-voltage C-V was proposed to determine the trapping profile of a stressed AlGaN/GaN HFET. Comparing the curves between initial and stressed C-V measurements revealed that the transient behavior was dominated by ionized acceptor-like traps, and the trapping profile within the high VDS off-state stressed AlGaN/GaN HFET could be deduced. The measurement results also correlated with the degradation in dynamic RDS,on after the transistor was stressed with similar stress conditions. Based on the correlation the deduced trap profiles and dynamic RDS,on degradation, the location with high electric field that determines the major degradation is determined. Finally, a new source field plate is proposed and demonstrated to improve the dynamic performance degradation.
Finally, the proposed were applied to systematically study the trapping behavior in an AlGaN/GaN HFET endures high VDS off-state stress. Transient Id-Vg is investigated to study threshold voltage shift (ΔVth) after stress. However, the amount of ΔVth was used to evaluate the degradation caused by injection carriers into the region underneath gate. This methodology only addresses one part of the current-collapse effect. The second methodology, stressed C-V, was used to extract the trap profile between the gate field plate edge and source field plate edge. Based on the correlation between the trap profiles and dynamic RDS,on degradation, the location with high trap density that determines the major degradation is determined. Lastly, a new three-terminals synchronous switching with substrate bias was proposed to study the influence of buffer traps. Based on energy-band lifting simulated from simulation tool and the broader trap profile extracted from stress C-V measurement, the most possible region to trap carriers and cause degradation in dynamic Ron is the buffer layer between the gate field plate edge and source field plate edge after off-state near breakdown stress.
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