Reliability Investigation of GaN HEMTs for MMICs Applications

Results obtained during the evaluation of radio frequency (RF) reliability carried out on several devices fabricated with different epi-structure and field-plate geometries will be presented and discussed. Devices without a field-plate structure experienced a more severe degradation when compared to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Alessandro Chini, Gaudenzio Meneghesso, Alessio Pantellini, Claudio Lanzieri, Enrico Zanoni
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2014-08-01
Series:Micromachines
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/5/3/570
Description
Summary:Results obtained during the evaluation of radio frequency (RF) reliability carried out on several devices fabricated with different epi-structure and field-plate geometries will be presented and discussed. Devices without a field-plate structure experienced a more severe degradation when compared to their counterparts while no significant correlation has been observed with respect of the different epi-structure tested. RF stress induced two main changes in the device electrical characteristics, i.e., an increase in drain current dispersion and a reduction in gate-leakage currents. Both of these phenomena can be explained by assuming a density increase of an acceptor trap located beneath the gate contact and in the device barrier layer. Numerical simulations carried out with the aim of supporting the proposed mechanism will also be presented.
ISSN:2072-666X