TY - GEN
T1 - GaN MIS-HEMTs in Repetitive Overvoltage Switching
T2 - 2022 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium, IRPS 2022
AU - Song, Qihao
AU - Kozak, Joseph P.
AU - Ma, Yunwei
AU - Liu, Jingcun
AU - Zhang, Ruizhe
AU - Volkov, Roman
AU - Sherman, Daniel
AU - Smith, Kurt V.
AU - Saito, Wataru
AU - Zhang, Yuhao
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the High Density Integration and the Power Management Consortiums of the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES), Virginia Tech. The authors would like to acknowledge Silvaco Inc. for their collaboration with TCAD simulations, as well as Kaustubh Joshi for the discussions on this work.
Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the High Density Integration and the Power Management Consortiums of the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES), Virginia Tech.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 IEEE.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - The overvoltage and surge energy robustness of GaN power high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) is a key gap recently identified by the JEDEC JC-70.1 committee. This work presents the first study on the parametric shift and recovery of an industrial depletion-mode metal-insulator-semiconductor HEMT (MIS-HEMT) in repetitive overvoltage switching close to its dynamic breakdown voltage. In each switching cycle, a voltage overshoot of up to 90% of dynamic breakdown voltage was applied during the device turn-OFF process. As the repetitive switching prolongs, the device showed shifts in threshold voltage, saturation current, and on-resistance, and these parametric shifts saturated after 1-million cycles. These parametric shifts are believed to be induced by the trapping of the holes generated in the impact ionization. After the repetitive switching, the device exhibited slow recovery in the natural state, at elevated temperatures, or with negative gate biases, due to the difficulty in hole removal. By contrast, applying a positive gate bias or a positive substrate bias can facilitate the hole migration towards the two-dimensional-gas (2DEG) channel for recombination, and therefore, accelerated the device recovery. In particular, a 50-V substrate bias allowed the device to recover in a few minutes. This work shows the good overvoltage robustness of GaN MIS-HEMTs and unveils effective methods for their post-switching recovery, as well as suggests the significance of hole dynamics for the device overvoltage switching close to the dynamic breakdown voltage.
AB - The overvoltage and surge energy robustness of GaN power high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) is a key gap recently identified by the JEDEC JC-70.1 committee. This work presents the first study on the parametric shift and recovery of an industrial depletion-mode metal-insulator-semiconductor HEMT (MIS-HEMT) in repetitive overvoltage switching close to its dynamic breakdown voltage. In each switching cycle, a voltage overshoot of up to 90% of dynamic breakdown voltage was applied during the device turn-OFF process. As the repetitive switching prolongs, the device showed shifts in threshold voltage, saturation current, and on-resistance, and these parametric shifts saturated after 1-million cycles. These parametric shifts are believed to be induced by the trapping of the holes generated in the impact ionization. After the repetitive switching, the device exhibited slow recovery in the natural state, at elevated temperatures, or with negative gate biases, due to the difficulty in hole removal. By contrast, applying a positive gate bias or a positive substrate bias can facilitate the hole migration towards the two-dimensional-gas (2DEG) channel for recombination, and therefore, accelerated the device recovery. In particular, a 50-V substrate bias allowed the device to recover in a few minutes. This work shows the good overvoltage robustness of GaN MIS-HEMTs and unveils effective methods for their post-switching recovery, as well as suggests the significance of hole dynamics for the device overvoltage switching close to the dynamic breakdown voltage.
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U2 - 10.1109/IRPS48227.2022.9764548
DO - 10.1109/IRPS48227.2022.9764548
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85130741584
T3 - IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium Proceedings
SP - 10B41-10B47
BT - 2022 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium, IRPS 2022 - Proceedings
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 27 March 2022 through 31 March 2022
ER -