Influence of electric field upon current collapse phenomena and reliability in high voltage GaN-HEMTs

This paper reports that the maximum electric field is a dominant factor for current collapse phenomena and reliability in high-voltage GaN-HEMTs. The relation between the dynamic on-resistance increase caused by the collapse phenomena and the maximum electric field peak showed universality, which was independent from the field plate (FP) structure and the wafer. The gate-edge electric field strongly affects the increase of the dynamic on-resistance. After the continuous switching test for 7 hours, the change of the dynamic on-resistance also depended on the maximum electric field. The optimal FP structure minimized the increase of the dynamic on-resistance and realized high reliability due to minimization of the electric field peaks.