AlGaN/GaN Dual-Channel Lateral Field-Effect Rectifier With Punchthrough Breakdown Immunity and Low On-Resistance

We propose an AlGaN/GaN dual-channel lateral field-effect rectifier (DCL-FER) with improved balance between the reverse breakdown voltage (BV) and on-resistance. Instead of utilizing a long single enhancement-mode (E-mode) Schottky-controlled channel to enhance the punchthrough BV but inevitably sacrifice the on-resistance, the DCL-FER features a dual channel consisting of one E-mode section and one depletion-mode (D-mode) section in series. The D-mode channel provides higher carrier density that facilitates high on-current or low on-resistance while still preventing the E-mode channel from being punched through under high reverse voltage. For rectifiers with the same physical dimensions (a drift region length of 5 ??m and a Schottky-controlled channel length of 2 ??m), the DCL-FER is shown to deliver comparable BV while featuring 53% lower on-resistance.