Toward a physical understanding of the reliability-limiting EC-0.57 eV trap in GaN HEMTs

Author

Sasikumar, A. ; Cardwell, D.W. ; Arehart, A.R. ; Lu, Jun ; Kaun, Stephen W. ; Keller, S. ; Mishra, Umesh K. ; Speck, James S. ; Pelz, J.P. ; Ringel, Steven A.

Author_Institution

Depts. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH, USA

fYear

2014

fDate

1-5 June 2014

Abstract

Recent reliability testing campaigns on AlGaN/GaN HEMTs have consistently revealed a critical E_C-0.57 eV trap that is responsible for drain-lag, RF output power degradation, and current-collapse among other non-idealities. In this work, a comprehensive set of data obtained from a range of measurements and specialized test structures are combined and presented to reveal compelling evidence that this nearly ubiquitous degradation-causing defect in GaN HEMTs is physically located in the GaN buffer.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; gallium compounds; high electron mobility transistors; wide band gap semiconductors; AlGaN-GaN; HEMT; RF output power degradation; current-collapse; drain-lag; electron volt energy 0.57 eV; nearly ubiquitous degradation-causing defect; reliability testing campaigns; specialized test structures; Aluminum gallium nitride; Electron traps; Gallium nitride; HEMTs; Logic gates; MODFETs; Transient analysis; HEMTs; deep levels; degradation; reliability; traps;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Reliability Physics Symposium, 2014 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IRPS.2014.6860588

Filename

6860588