Degraded model of radiation-induced acceptor defects for GaN-based high electron mobility transistors(HEMTs)

Using depletion approximation theory and introducing acceptor defects which can characterize radiation induced deep-level defects in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures,we set up a radiation damage model of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor （HEMT） to separately simulate the effects of several main radiation damage mechanisms and the complete radiation damage effect simultaneously considering the degradation in mobility. Our calculated results,consistent with the experimental results,indicate that thin AlGaN barrier layer,high Al content and high doping concentration are favourable for restraining the shifts of threshold voltage in the AlGaN/GaN HEMT;when the acceptor concentration induced is less than 10^14cm-3,the shifts in threshold voltage are not obvious;only when the acceptor concentration induced is higher than 10^16cm-3,will the shifts of threshold voltage remarkably increase;the increase of threshold voltage,resulting from radiation induced acceptor,mainly contributes to the degradation in drain saturation current of the current-voltage （Ⅰ-Ⅴ） characteristic,but has no effect on the transconductance in the saturation area.

Evaluation of thermal resistance constitution for packaged AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors by structure function method

The evaluation of thermal resistance constitution for packaged A1GaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor （HEMT） by structure function method is proposed in this paper. The evaluation is based on the transient heating measurement of the A1GaN/GaN HEMT by pulsed electrical temperature sensitive parameter method. The extracted chip-level and package-level thermal resistances of the packaged multi-finger A1GaN/GaN HEMT with 400μm SiC substrate are 22.5 K/W and 7.2 K/W respectively, which provides a non-invasive method to evaluate the chip-level thermal resistance of packaged A1GaN/GaN HEMTs. It is also experimentally proved that the extraction of the chip- level thermal resistance by this proposed method is not influenced by package form of the tested device and temperature boundary condition of measurement stage.

High-field-induced electron detrapping in an AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor

A step stress test is carried out to study the reliability characteristics of an AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor（HEMT）.An anomalous critical drain-to-gate voltage with a negative temperature coefficient is observed in the stress sequence,beyond which the HEMT device starts to recover from degradation induced by early lower voltage stress.While the performance degradation featuring the drain current slump stems from electron trapping in the surface or bulk states during low-to-medium bias stress,the recovery is attributed to high field induced electron detrapping.The carrier detrapping mechanism could be helpful for lessening the trapping-related performance degradation of a GaN-based HEMT.

Enhancement of terahertz coupling efficiency by improved antenna design in GaN/AlGaN high electron mobility transistor detectors

An optimized micro-gated terahertz detector with novel triple resonant antenna is presented.The novel resonant antenna operates at room temperature and shows more than a 700% increase in photocurrent response compared to the conventional bowtie antenna.In finite-difference-time-domain simulations,we found the performance of the self-mixing GaN/AlGaN high electron mobility transistor detector is mainly dependent on the parameters L gs（the gap between the gate and the source/drain antenna） and L w（the gap between the source and drain antenna）.With the improved triple resonant antenna,an optimized micrometer-sized AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor detector can achieve a high responsivity of 9.45×102 V/W at a frequency of 903 GHz at room temperature.

High-electric-field-stress-induced degradation of SiN passivated AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors （HEMTs） are fabricated by employing SiN passivation, this paper investigates the degradation due to the high-electric-field stress. After the stress, a recoverable degradation has been found, consisting of the decrease of saturation drain current IDsat, maximal transconductance gm, and the positive shift of threshold voltage VTH at high drain-source voltage VDS. The high-electric-field stress degrades the electric characteristics of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs because the high field increases the electron trapping at the surface and in AlGaN barrier layer. The SiN passivation of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs decreases the surface trapping and 2DEC depletion a little during the high-electric-field stress. After the hot carrier stress with VDS = 20 V and VGS= 0 V applied to the device for 104 sec, the SiN passivation decreases the stress-induced degradation of IDsat from 36% to 30%. Both on-state and pulse-state stresses produce comparative decrease of IDsat, which shows that although the passivation is effective in suppressing electron trapping in surface states, it does not protect the device from high-electric-field degradation in nature. So passivation in conjunction with other technological solutions like cap layer, prepassivation surface treatments, or field-plate gate to weaken high-electric-field degradation should be adopted.

Novel model of a AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor based on an artificial neural network

In this paper we present a novel approach to modeling AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor （HEMT） with an artificial neural network （ANN）. The AlGaN/GaN HEMT device structure and its fabrication process are described. The circuit-based Neuro-space mapping （neuro-SM） technique is studied in detail. The EEHEMT model is implemented according to the measurement results of the designed device, which serves as a coarse model. An ANN is proposed to model AIGaN/CaN HEMT based on the coarse model. Its optimization is performed. The simulation results from the model are compared with the measurement results. It is shown that the simulation results obtained from the ANN model of A1GaN/GaN HEMT are more accurate than those obtained from the EEHEMT model.

Influence of a drain field plate on the forward blocking characteristics of an AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor

In this paper, the influence of a drain field plate （FP） on the forward blocking characteristics of an AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor （HEMT） is investigated. The HEMT with only a gate FP is optimized, and breakdown voltage VBR is saturated at 1085 V for gate–drain spacing LGD ≥ 8 μm. On the basis of the HEMT with a gate FP, a drain FP is added with LGD=10 μm. For the length of the drain FP LDF ≤ 2 μm, VBR is almost kept at 1085 V, showing no degradation. When LDF exceeds 2 μm, VBR decreases obviously as LDF increases. Moreover, the larger the LDF, the larger the decrease of VBR. It is concluded that the distance between the gate edge and the drain FP edge should be larger than a certain value to prevent the drain FP from affecting the forward blocking voltage and the value should be equal to the LGD at which VBR begins to saturate in the first structure. The electric field and potential distribution are simulated and analyzed to account for the decrease of VBR.

High performance InAlN/GaN high electron mobility transistors for low voltage applications

A high performance InAlN/GaN high electron mobility transistor(HEMT)at low voltage operation(6-10 V drain voltage)has been fabricated.An 8 nm InAlN barrier layer is adopted to generate large 2DEG density thus to reduce sheet resistance.Highly scaled lateral dimension(1.2μm source-drain spacing)is to reduce access resistance.Both low sheet resistance of the InAlN/GaN structure and scaled lateral dimension contribute to an high extrinsic transconductance of 550 mS/mm and a large drain current of 2.3 A/mm with low on-resistance(Ron)of 0.9Ω·mm.Small signal measurement shows an fT/fmax of 131 GHz/196 GHz.Large signal measurement shows that the InAlN/GaN HEMT can yield 64.7%-52.7%(Vds=6-10 V)power added efficiency(PAE)associated with 1.6-2.4 W/mm output power density at 8 GHz.These results demonstrate that GaN-based HEMTs not only have advantages in the existing high voltage power and high frequency rf field,but also are attractive for low voltage mobile compatible rf applications.

Characteristics of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors on metallic substrate

We have successfully prepared GaN based high electron mobility transistors(HEMTs)on metallic substrates transferred from silicon substrates by electroplating technique.GaN HEMTs on Cu substrates are demonstrated to basically have the same good electric characteristics as the chips on Si substrates.Furthermore,the better heat dissipation of HEMTs on Cu substrates compared to HEMTs on Si substrates is clearly observed by thermoreflectance imaging,showing the promising potential for very high-power and high-temperature operation.This work shows the outstanding ability of HEMT chips on Cu substrates for solving the self-heating effect with the advantages of process simplicity,high yield,and low production requirement.

High temperature characteristics of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Direct current （DC） and pulsed measurements are performed to determine the degradation mechanisms of A1GaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors （HEMTs） under high temperature. The degradation of the DC characteristics is mainly attributed to the reduction in the density and the mobility of the two-dimensional electron gas （2DEG）. The pulsed measurements indicate that the trap assisted tunneling is the dominant gate leakage mechanism in the temperature range of interest. The traps in the barrier layer become active as the temperature increases, which is conducive to the electron tunneling between the gate and the channel. The enhancement of the tunneling results in the weakening of the current collapse effects, as the electrons trapped by the barrier traps can escape more easily at the higher temperature.

Kink effect in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors by electrical stress

The kink effect is studied in an AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor by measuring DC performance during fresh, short-term stress and recovery cycle with negligible degradation. Vdg plays an assistant role in detrapping electrons and short-term stress results in no creation of new category traps but an increase in number of active traps. A possible mechanism is proposed that electrical stress supplies traps with the electric field for activation and when device is under test field-assisted hot-electrons result in electrons detrapping from traps, thus deteriorating the kink effect. In addition, experiments show that the impact ionization is at a relatively low level, which is not the dominant mechanism compared with trapping effect. We analyse the complicated link between the kink effect and stress bias through groups of electrical stress states： Pals = 0-state, off-state, on-state （on-state with low voltage, high-power state, high field state）. Finlly, a conclusion is drawn that electric field brings about more severe kink effect than hot electrons. With the assistance of electric field, hot electrons tend to be possible to modulate the charges in deep-level trap.

Neutron irradiation effects on AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

A1GaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors （HEMTs） were exposed to 1 MeV neutron irradiation at a neutron ftuence of 1 × 10^15 cm-2. The dc characteristics of the devices, such as the drain saturation current and the maximum transconductance, decreased after neutron irradiation. The gate leakage currents increased obviously after neutron irradiation. However, the rf characteristics, such as the cut-off frequency and the maximum frequency, were hardly affected by neutron irradiation. The A1GaN/GaN heterojunctions have been employed for the better understanding of the degradation mechanism. It is shown in the Hall measurements and capacitance voltage tests that the mobility and concentration of two-dimensional electron gas （2DEG） decreased after neutron irradiation. Tbere was no evidence of the full-width at half-maximum of X-ray diffraction （XRD） rocking curve changing after irradiation, so the dislocation was not influenced by neutron irradiation. It is concluded that the point defects induced in A1GaN and GaN by neutron irradiation are the dominant mechanisms responsible for performance degradations of A1GaN/GaN HEMT devices.

Trap states induced by reactive ion etching in AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors

Frequency-dependent conductance measurements were carried out to investigate the trap states induced by reactive ion etching in A1GaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors （HEMTs） quantitatively. For the non-recessed HEMT, the trap state density decreases from 2.48 × 1013 cm-2.eV-1 at an energy of 0.29 eV to 2.79 × 1012 cm-2.eV-1 at ET = 0.33 eV. In contrast, the trap state density of 2.38 × 1013-1.10× 1014 cm-2.eV-1 is located at ET in a range of 0.30-0.33 eV for the recessed HEMT. Thus, lots of trap states with shallow energy levels are induced by the gate recess etching. The induced shallow trap states can be changed into deep trap states by 350 ℃ annealing process. As a result, there are two different types of trap sates, fast and slow, in the annealed HEMT. The parameters of the annealed HEMT are ET = 0.29-0.31 eV and DT = 8.16× 1012-5.58 × 1013 cm-2.eV-1 for the fast trap states, and ET = 0.37-0.45 eV and DT = 1.84×1013- 8.50 × 1013 cm-2.eV-1 for the slow trap states. The gate leakage currents are changed by the etching and following annealing process, and this change can be explained by the analysis of the trap states.

Breakdown voltage analysis of Al_(0.25)Ga_(0.75)N/GaN high electron mobility transistors with partial silicon doping in the AlGaN layer

In this paper,two-dimensional electron gas（2DEG） regions in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors（HEMTs） are realized by doping partial silicon into the AlGaN layer for the first time.A new electric field peak is introduced along the interface between the AlGaN and GaN buffer by the electric field modulation effect due to partial silicon positive charge.The high electric field near the gate for the complete silicon doping structure is effectively decreased,which makes the surface electric field uniform.The high electric field peak near the drain results from the potential difference between the surface and the depletion regions.Simulated breakdown curves that are the same as the test results are obtained for the first time by introducing an acceptor-like trap into the N-type GaN buffer.The proposed structure with partial silicon doping is better than the structure with complete silicon doping and conventional structures with the electric field plate near the drain.The breakdown voltage is improved from 296 V for the conventional structure to 400 V for the proposed one resulting from the uniform surface electric field.

Enhancement of Breakdown Voltage in AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors Using Double Buried p-Type Layers

A novel A1GaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor （HEMT） with double buried p-type layers （DBPLs） in the GaN buffer layer and its mechanism are studied. The DBPL A1GaN/GaN HEMT is characterized by two equi-long p-type GaN layers which are buried in the GaN buffer layer under the source side. Under the condition of high-voltage blocking state, two reverse p-n junctions introduced by the buried p-type layers will effectively modulate the surface and bulk electric fields. Meanwhile, the buffer leakage is well suppressed in this structure and both lead to a high breakdown voltage. The simulations show that the breakdown voltage of the DBPL structure can reach above 2000 V from 467 V of the conventional structure with the same gate-drain length of 8μm.

Investigation of AlGaN/GaN fluorine plasma treatment enhancement-mode high electronic mobility transistors by frequency-dependent capacitance and conductance analysis

This paper reports fluorine plasma treatment enhancement-mode HEMTs （high electronic mobility transistors） EHEMTs and conventional depletion-mode HEMTs DHEMTs fabricated on one wafer using separate litho-photography technology. It finds that fluorine plasma etches the AlGaN at a slow rate by capacitance-voltage measurement. Using capacitance-frequency measurement, it finds one type of trap in conventional DHEMTs with TT = （0.5 - 6） ms and DT ： （1 - 5）×10^13 cm^-2. eV^-1. Two types of trap are found in fluorine plasma treatment EHEMTs, fast with TW（f）= （0.2 - 2） μs and slow with TT（s） = （0.5 - 6） ms. The density of trap states evaluated on the EHEMTs is Dw（f） ： （1 - 3） × 10^12 cm^-2. eV^-1 and DT（s） =（2 - 6） × 10^12 cm-2. eV-1 for the fast and slow traps, respectively. The result shows that the fluorine plasma treatment reduces the slow trap density by about one order, but introduces a new type of fast trap. The slow trap is suggested to be a surface trap, related to the gate leakage current.

Influence of a two-dimensional electron gas on current-voltage characteristics of Al_(0.3)Ga_(0.7) N/GaN high electron mobility transistors

The J-V characteristics of AltGa1 tN/GaN high electron mobility transistors（HEMTs） are investigated and simulated using the self-consistent solution of the Schro dinger and Poisson equations for a two-dimensional electron gas（2DEG） in a triangular potential well with the Al mole fraction t = 0.3 as an example.Using a simple analytical model,the electronic drift velocity in a 2DEG channel is obtained.It is found that the current density through the 2DEG channel is on the order of 10^13 A/m^2 within a very narrow region（about 5 nm）.For a current density of 7 × 10^13 A/m62 passing through the 2DEG channel with a 2DEG density of above 1.2 × 10^17 m^-2 under a drain voltage Vds = 1.5 V at room temperature,the barrier thickness Lb should be more than 10 nm and the gate bias must be higher than 2 V.

Channel temperature determination of a multifinger AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor using a micro-Raman technique

Self-heating in a multifinger A1GaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor （HEMT） is investigated by micro-Raman spectroscopy, The device temperature is probed on the die as a function of applied bias. The operating temperature of the A1GaN/GaN HEMT is estimated from the calibration curve of a passively heated A1GaN/GaN structure. A linear increase of junction temperature is observed when direct current dissipated power is increased. When the power dissipation is 12.75 W at a drain voltage of 15 V, a peak temperature of 69.1 ℃ is observed at the gate edge on the drain side of the central finger. The position of the highest temperature corresponds to the high-field region at the gate edge.

DC Characteristics of Lattice-Matched InAlN/AlN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors

Lattice-matched InAlN/AlN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) grown on sapphire substrate by using low-pressure metallorganic chemical vapor deposition were prepared, and the comprehensive DC characteristics were implemented by Keithley 4200 Semiconductor Characterization System. The experimental results indicated that a maximum drain current over 400 mA/mm and a peak external transconductance of 215 mS/mm can be achieved in the initial HEMTs. However, after the devices endured a 10-h thermal aging in furnace under nitrogen condition at 300 ℃, the maximum reduction of saturation drain current and external transconductance at high gate-source voltage and drain-source voltage were 30% and 35%, respectively. Additionally, an increased drain-source leakage current was observed at three-terminal off-state. It was inferred that the degradation was mainly related to electron-trapping defects in the InAlN barrier layer.

1.0μm gate-length InP-based InGaAs high electron mobility transistors by mental organic chemical vapor deposition

InGaAs high electron mobility transistors(HEMTs)on InP substrate with very good device performance have been grown by mental organic chemical vapor deposition(MOCVD).Room temperature Hall mobilities of the 2-DEG are measured to be over 8700cm2/V-s with sheet carrier densities larger than 4.6×10 12cm-2.Transistors with 1.0μm gate length exhibits transconductance up to 842mS/mm.Excellent depletion-mode operation,with a threshold voltage of-0.3V and IDSS of 673mA/mm,is realized.The non-alloyed ohmic contact special resistance is as low as 1.66×10-8Ω/cm2,which is so far the lowest ohmic contact special resistance.The unity current gain cut off frequency(fT)and the maximum oscillation frequency(fmax)are 42.7 and 61.3 GHz,respectively.These results are very encouraging toward manufacturing InP-based HEMT by MOCVD.