Enhancement-Mode GaN Transistor Technology for Harsh Environment Operation
Mengyang Yuan, John Niroula, Qingyun Xie, Nitul S. Rajput, Kai Fu, Shisong Luo, Sagar Kumar Das, Abdullah Jubair Bin Iqbal, Bejoy Sikder, Mohamed Fadil Isamotu, Minsik Oh, Savannah R. Eisner, Debbie G. Senesky, Gary W. Hunter, Nadim Chowdhury, Yuji Zhao, Tomás Palacios
Abstract
This letter reports an enhancement-mode (E-mode) GaN transistor technology which has been demonstrated to operate in a simulated Venus environment (460 °C, ~ 92 atm., containing CO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> /N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> /SO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> etc.) for 10 days. The robustness of the W/p-GaN-gate AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) was evaluated by two complementary approaches, (1) <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in-situ</i> electrical characterization, which revealed proper transistor operation (including E-mode <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${V}_{\textit {TH}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> with <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ < {0}.{09}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> V variation) in extreme environments; and (2) advanced microscopy investigation of the device after test, which highlighted the effect of the stress conditions on the epitaxial and device structures. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first demonstration and comprehensive analysis of E-mode GaN transistors in such harsh environments, therefore establishing the proposed GaN technology as a strong contender for harsh environment mixed-signal electronics.