1.2 kV/25 A Normally off P-N Junction/AlGaN/GaN HEMTs With Nanosecond Switching Characteristics and Robust Overvoltage Capability
Feng Zhou, Weizong Xu, Fangfang Ren, Yuanyang Xia, Leke Wu, Tinggang Zhu, Dunjun Chen, Rong Zhang, Youdou Zheng, Hai Lu
Abstract
With a reverse p-n junction in the gate stack design, this work demonstrates a 1.2 kV/25 A normally <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">off</small> p-n junction/AlGaN/GaN high-electron mobility transistor (PNJ-HEMT). Benefiting from the robust gate terminal, the PNJ-HEMT exhibits a large gate breakdown voltage of 18.2 V and a positive threshold voltage of 1.7 V, enabling a wide gate-bias window. Thereafter, with an applicable <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">V</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">GS</sub> of 10 V, the transient switching characteristics in nanosecond timescale (11.7-ns rise time and 10.5-ns fall time) and notable immunity to dynamic <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">on</sub> degradation, as well as record-high dynamic breakdown voltage (1.62 kV) under transient overvoltage have been demonstrated. In particular, rugged reliability is validated after over 1-million times dynamic breakdown with a 1.5-kV peak overvoltage. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of high- <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">V</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">GS</sub> (10 V) GaN HEMT's circuit-level operating capability with considerable reliability, and has well exceeded the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">V</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">GS</sub> limit of 5–7 V in conventional <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">p</i> -GaN gate-terminal devices, thus possessing great potentials in high-power, high-frequency, and high-reliability applications.