Identification of an RF degradation mechanism in GaN based HEMTs triggered by midgap traps

Quantitative defect spectroscopy was performed on low gate leakage operational S-band GaN HEMTs before and after RF accelerated life testing (ALT) to investigate and quantify potential connections between the evolution of observed traps and RF output power loss in these HEMTs after stressing. Constant drain current deep level transient spectroscopy and deep level optical spectroscopy (CI_D-DLTS and CI_D-DLOS, respectively) were used to interrogate thermally-emitting traps (CI_D-DLTS) and deeper optically-stimulated traps (CI_D-DLOS) so that the entire bandgap can be probed systematically before and after ALT. Using drain-controlled CI_D-DLTS/DLOS, with which traps in the drain access region are resolved, it is found that an increase in the concentration of a broad range of deep states between E_C–1.6 to 3.0 eV, detected by CI_D-DLOS, causes a persistent increase in on-resistance of ~ 0.22 Ω-mm, which is a likely source for the 1.2 dB reduction in RF output power that was observed after stressing. In contrast, the combined effect of the upper bandgap states at E_C–0.57 and E_C–0.72 eV, observed by CI_D-DLTS, is responsible for only ~ 10% of the on-resistance increase. These results demonstrate the importance of discriminating between traps throughout the entire bandgap with regard to the relative roles of individual traps on degradation of GaN HEMTs after ALT.     

Similarities of lag phenomena and current collapse in field-plate AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with different types of buffer layers

We make a two-dimensional transient analysis of field-plate AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with a Fe-doped semi-insulating buffer layer, which is modeled that as deep levels, only a deep acceptor located above the midgap is included (E_C − E_DA = 0.5 eV, E_C: energy level at the bottom of conduction band, E_DA: deep acceptor's energy level). And the results are compared with a case having an undoped semi-insulating buffer layer in which a deep donor above the midgap (E_C − E_DD = 0.5 eV. E_DD: the deep donor's energy level) is considered to compensate a deep acceptor below the midgap (E_DA − E_V = 0.6 eV, E_V: energy level at the top of valence band). It is shown that the drain-current responses when the drain voltage is lowered abruptly are reproduced quite similarly between the two cases with different types of buffer layers, although the time region where the slow current transients occur is a little different. The lags and current collapse are reduced by introducing a field plate. This reduction in lags and current collapse occurs because the deep acceptor's electron trapping is reduced under the gate region in the buffer layer. The dependence of drain lag, gate lag and current collapse on the field-plate length and the SiN layer thickness is also studied, indicating that the rates of drain lag, gate lag and current collapse are quantitatively quite similar between the two cases with different types of buffer layers when the deep-acceptor densities are the same.     

Operational frequency degradation induced trapping in scaled GaN HEMTs

Cut-off frequency increase from 12.1 GHz to 26.4 GHz, 52.1 GHz and 91.4 GHz is observed when the 1 μm gate length GaN HEMT is laterally scaled down to L_G = 0.5 μm, L_G = 0.25 μm and L_G = 0.125 μm, respectively. The study is based on accurately calibrated transfer characteristics (I_D-V_GS) of the 1 μm gate length device using Silvaco TCAD. If the scaling is also performed horizontally, proportionally to the lateral (full scaling), the maximum drain current is reduced by 38.2% when the gate-to-channel separation scales from 33 nm to 8.25 nm. Degradation of the RF performance of a GaN HEMT due to the electric field induced acceptor traps experienced under a high electrical stress is found to be about 8% for 1 μm gate length device. The degradation of scaled HEMTs reduces to 3.5% and 7.3% for the 0.25 μm and 0.125 gate length devices, respectively. The traps at energy level of E_T = E_V + 0.9 eV (carbon) with concentrations of N_IT = 5 × 10¹⁶cm^− 3, N_IT = 5 × 10¹⁷cm^− 3 and N_IT = 5 × 10¹⁸cm^− 3 are located in the drain access region where highest electrical field is expected. The effect of traps on the cut-off frequency is reduced for devices with shorter gate lengths down to 0.125 μm.     

Investigation of deep level defects in copper irradiated bipolar junction transistor

Commercial bipolar junction transistor (2N 2219A, npn) irradiated with 150 MeV Cu¹¹⁺-ions with fluence of the order 10¹² ions cm^?2, is studied for radiation induced gain degradation and deep level defects. I–V measurements are made to study the gain degradation as a function of ion fluence. The properties such as activation energy, trap concentration and capture cross-section of deep levels are studied by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS). Minority carrier trap levels with energies ranging from E_C ? 0.164 eV to E_C ? 0.695 eV are observed in the base–collector junction of the transistor. Majority carrier trap levels are also observed with energies ranging from E_V + 0.203 eV to E_V + 0.526 eV. The irradiated transistor is subjected to isothermal and isochronal annealing. The defects are seen to anneal above 350 °C. The defects generated in the base region of the transistor by displacement damage appear to be responsible for transistor gain degradation.     

The role of surface barrier oxidation on AlGaN/GaN HEMTs reliability

Reliability of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs processed with different surface oxidation levels was studied using electrical and optical methods. It was found that HEMTs with more surface oxide content are more susceptible to degradation in terms of gate leakage and trapping characteristics, although this oxide layer initially passivates surface traps. In the degraded devices, trap level with activation energy of 0.45–0.47 eV was observed and attributed to surface related traps. This indicates that oxygen may play a crucial role for AlGaN/GaN HEMT reliability.     

Deep trap-induced dynamic on-resistance degradation in GaN-on-Si power MISHEMTs

Identification and characterization of a single, deep trap causing large increases in the on-resistance of GaN-on-Si power metal-insulator-semiconductor-high electron mobility transistors (MISHEMTs) is reported. This is achieved by using HEMT-based deep level optical spectroscopy (DLOS) and related methods in conjunction with high voltage off-state V_DS switching up to 400 V. A trap with an activation energy of ~ E_C − 2 eV that is physically located in the drain-access region of the MISHEMT is shown to be the primary source of an increase of the dynamic on-resistance increase by as much as ~ 9 times at 400 V operation. Comparisons of trap signatures extracted from the MISHEMT with capacitance-based DLOS measurements of simple Schottky-diode test-structures showing the same, dominant trap signature suggests that the physical defect is located within the GaN buffer and is not a surface or insulator-related defect. A buffer trap based model is presented to explain the observed on-resistance degradation effects in the MISHEMTs during high voltage switching.     

Investigation of deep level defects in electron irradiated indium arsenide quantum dots embedded in a gallium arsenide matrix

Gallium arsenide diodes with and without indium arsenide quantum dots were electron irradiated to investigate radiation induced defects. Baseline and quantum dot gallium arsenide pn-junction diodes were characterized by capacitance–voltage measurements, and deep level transient spectroscopy. Carrier accumulation was observed in the gallium arsenide quantum dot sample at the designed depth for the quantum dots via capacitance–voltage measurements. Prior to irradiation, a defect 0.84 eV below the conduction band (E_C – 0.84 eV) was observed in the baseline sample which is consistent with the native EL2 defect seen in gallium arsenide. After 1 MeV electron irradiation three new defects were observed in the baseline sample, labeled as E3 (E_C – 0.25 eV), E4 (E_C – 0.55 eV), and E5 (E_C – 0.76 eV), consistent with literature reports of electron irradiated gallium arsenide. Prior to irradiation, the addition of quantum dots appeared to have introduced defect levels at E_C – 0.21, E_C – 0.38, and E_C – 0.75 eV denoted as QD–DX1, QD–DX2, and QD–EL2 respectively. In the quantum dot sample after 1 MeV electron irradiation, QD–E3 (E_C – 0.28 eV), QD–E4 (E_C – 0.49 eV), and QD–EL2 (E_C – 0.72 eV) defects, similar to the baseline sample, were observed, although the trap density was dissimilar to that of the baseline sample. The quantum dot sample showed a higher density of the QD–E4 defect and a lower density of QD–E3, while the QD–EL2 defect seemed to be unaffected by electron irradiation. These findings suggest that the quantum dot sample may be more radiation tolerant to the E3 defect as compared to the baseline sample.     

Performance of commercial foundry-level AlGaN/GaN HEMTs after hot electron stressing

The performance degradation of commercial foundry level GaN HEMTs placed under a constant-power drain voltage step-stress test has been studied. By utilizing electroluminescence measurement techniques to optimize hot electron stress testing conditions (Meneghini, 2012), no significant permanent changes in saturation current (I_dss), transconductance (Gm), and threshold voltage (V_th) can be seen after stress testing of drain voltages from 30 V up to 200 V. We observe little permanent degradation due to hot electron effects in GaN HEMTs at these extreme operating conditions and it is inferred that other considerations, such as key dimensions in channel or peak electric field (Chynoweth, 1958; Zhang and Singh, 2001) [2,3], are more relevant to physics of failure than drain bias alone.     

Analysis of current collapse effect in AlGaN/GaN HEMT: Experiments and numerical simulations

In this work, current collapse effects in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are investigated by means of measurements and two-dimensional physical simulations. According to pulsed measurements, the used devices exhibit a significant gate-lag and a less pronounced drain-lag ascribed to the presence of surface/barrier and buffer traps, respectively. As a matter of fact, two trap levels (0.45 eV and 0.78 eV) were extracted by trapping analysis based on isothermal current transient. On the other hand, 2D physical simulations suggest that the kink effect can be explained by electron trapping into barrier traps and a consequent electron emission after a certain electric-field is reached.     

Experimental and simulated dc degradation of GaN HEMTs by means of gate-drain and gate-source reverse bias stress

In this paper, the degradation of AlGaN/GaN high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) is investigated by means of dc stresses performed on fresh devices either on the gate-drain junction only (i.e., with the source terminal floating) or on the gate-source junction only (i.e., with the drain terminal floating). In both cases step-stresses were carried out by increasing V_DG and V_SG respectively up to 35 V: the saturated drain current decreased in both cases, and a significant increase in the output conductance was found for the drain-stressed devices, whereas it was negligible for the source-stressed devices. The reason for these different behaviors was believed to be the creation of acceptor traps in the AlGaN layer underneath the stressed side of the gate junction, their influence being different in the two cases because of the high horizontal electric field at the drain end of the gate during on-state operation. We carried out numerical simulations showing that the presence of a defective region with an acceptor trap concentration underneath the gate-drain or gate-source junction fits our hypothesis.     

Analysis of traps effect on AlGaN/GaN HEMT by luminescence techniques

The study is carried out on AlGaN/GaN HEMTs presenting current collapse effect at V_ds lower than 6 V. This effect is completely recovered by illuminating the component with light of 710 nm wavelength (1.75 eV). The spectral analysis of the light emission in the visible near infrared spectrum shows a bell-shape with superimposed distinct emission peaks. These features suggest that the electroluminescence (EL) signal is due to the direct intraband of electrons and inelastic intraband transition of electrons due to scattering by charged centres. Photoionisation experiments have been conducted to determine the light wavelengths/energies that separately change the drain current and the gate leakage current.     

N2O treatment enhancement-mode InAlN/GaN HEMTs with HfZrO2 High-k insulator

A normally-off InAlN/GaN MIS-HEMT with HfZrO₂ gate insulator was realized and investigated. By using N₂O plasma treatment beneath the gate region, 13 nm InAlN Schottky layer was oxidized to AlON_x + 4 nm InAlN Schottky layer. The strong polarization induced carriers in traditional InAlN/GaN 2 DEG quantum well was reduced for enhancement-mode operation. High-k thin film HfZrO₂ was used for gate insulator of E-mode device to further suppress gate leakage current and enhance device gate operation range. The maximum drain current of E-mode InAlN/GaN MIS-HEMT was 498 mA/mm and this value was higher than previous published InAlN/GaN E-mode devices. The measurement results of low-frequency noise also concluded that the low frequency noise is attributed to the mobility fluctuation of the channel and N₂O plasma treatment did not increase fluctuation center of gate electrode.     

Study of the leakage current suppression for hybrid-Schottky/ohmic drain AlGaN/GaN HEMT

The leakage current suppression mechanism in AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) is investigated. It is known that leakage current can cause severe reliability problems for HEMT devices and conventional AlGaN/GaN HEMT devices suffer from detrimental off-state drain leakage current issues, especially under high off-state drain bias. Therefore, a leakage current suppression technique featuring hybrid-Schottky/ohmic-drain contact is discussed. Through the 2-zones leakage current suppression mechanism by the hybrid-Schottky/drain metal including the shielding effect of the rough ohmic-drain metal morphology and the drain side electric field modulation, AlGaN/GaN HEMT featuring this novel technique can significantly enhance the leakage current suppression capability and improve the breakdown voltage. An analytical method using loop-voltage-scanning is proposed to illustrate the optimization procedure of the hybrid-Schottky/ohmic drain metallization on leakage current suppression. Through the comparison of the loop leakage current hysteresis of conventional ohmic drain HEMT and hybrid-Schottky/ohmic drain, the leakage current suppression mechanism is verified through the leakage current considering surface acceptor-like trap charging/discharging model. Device featuring the hybrid-Schottky/ohmic drain technique shows an improvement in breakdown voltage from 450 V (with no Schottky drain metal) to 855 V with a total drift region length of 9 μm, indicating enhanced off-state reliability characteristics for the AlGaN/GaN HEMT devices.     

DC and microwave characteristics of Lg 50 nm T-gate InAlN/AlN/GaN HEMT for future high power RF applications

The DC and microwave characteristics of L_g = 50 nm T-gate InAlN/AlN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) on SiC substrate with heavily doped n+ GaN source and drain regions have demonstrated using Synopsys TCAD tool. The proposed device features an AlN spacer layer, AlGaN back-barrier and SiN surface passivation. The proposed HEMT exhibits a maximum drain current density of 1.8 A/mm, peak transconductance (g_m) of 650 mS/mm and ft/fmax of 118/210 GHz. At room temperature, the measured carrier mobility, sheet charge carrier density (n_s) and breakdown voltage are 1195 cm²/Vs, 1.6 × 10¹³ cm⁻² and 18 V respectively. The superlatives of the proposed HEMTs are bewitching competitor for future monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC) applications particularly in W-band (75–110 GHz) high power RF applications.     

Epitaxial growth of nonpolar GaN films on r-plane sapphire substrates by pulsed laser deposition

Single-crystalline nonpolar GaN epitaxial films have been successfully grown on r-plane sapphire (Al₂O₃) substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) with an in-plane epitaxial relationship of GaN[1-100]//Al₂O₃[11-20]. The properties of the ~500 nm-thick nonpolar GaN epitaxial films grown at temperatures ranging from 450 to 880 °C are studied in detail. It is revealed that the surface morphology, the crystalline quality, and the interfacial property of as-grown ~500 nm-thick nonpolar GaN epitaxial films are firstly improved and then decreased with the growth temperature changing from 450 to 880 °C. It shows an optimized result at the growth temperature of 850 °C, and the ~500 nm-thick nonpolar GaN epitaxial films grown at 850 °C show very smooth surface with a root-mean-square surface roughness of 5.5 nm and the best crystalline quality with the full-width at half-maximum values of X-ray rocking curves for GaN(11-20) and GaN(10-11) of 0.8° and 0.9°, respectively. Additionally, there is a 1.7 nm-thick interfacial layer existing between GaN epitaxial films and r-plane sapphire substrates. This work offers an effective approach for achieving single-crystalline nonpolar GaN epitaxial films for the fabrication of nonpolar GaN-based devices.     

Effect of trap states on the electrical doping of organic semiconductors

We demonstrate that direct charge transfer (CT) from trap states of host molecules to the p-dopant molecules raises the doping effect of organic semiconductors (OS). Electrons of the trap states in 4,4′-N,N′-dicarbazolyl-biphenyl (CBP) (E_HOMO = 6.1 eV) are directly transferred to the p-dopant, 2,2′-(perfluoronaphthalene-2,6-diylidene) dimalononitrile (F6-TCNNQ) (ELUMO = 5.4 eV). This doping process enhances the conductivity of doped OS by different ways from the ordinary doping mechanism of generating free hole carriers and filling trap states of doped OS. Trap density and trap energy are analysed by impedance spectroscopy and it is shown that the direct charge transfer from deep trap states of host to dopants enhances the hole mobility of doped OS and the I–V characteristics of hole only devices.     

A 24 W Ku band GaN based power amplifier with 9.1 dB linear gain

A Ku-band power amplifier is successfully developed with a single chip 4.8 mm AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). The AlGaN/GaN HEMTs device, achieved by E-beam lithography г-gate process, exhibited a gate-drain reverse breakdown voltage of larger than 100 V, a cutoff frequency of f_T=30 GHz and a maximum available gain of 13 dB at 14 GHz. The pulsed condition (100 μs pulse period and 10% duty cycle) was used to test the power characteristic of the power amplifier. At the frequency of 13.9 GHz, the developed GaN HEMTs power amplifier delivers a 43.8 dBm (24 W) saturated output power with 9.1 dB linear gain and 34.6% maximum power-added efficiency (PAE) with a drain voltage of 30 V. To our best knowledge, it is the state-of-the-art result ever reported for internal-matched 4.8 mm single chip GaN HEMTs power amplifier at Ku-band.     

Giant piezoelectric effect in GaN self-assembled quantum dots

We observe in strained GaN self-assembled quantum dots grown on an AlN layer, a dramatic modification of the optical emission spectra as the dot size varies. In “large” quantum dots with an average height of 4.1 nm, the photoluminescence (PL) peak is centered at 2.95 eV, nearly 0.5 eV below the bulk GaN bandgap. We attribute this enormous redshift to a giant 5.5 MV cm⁻¹ piezoelectric field present in our dots. Temperature-dependent PL studies reveal the strongly zero-dimensional character of this QD system and are consistent with an intrinsic PL mechanism.     

On-wafer RF stress and trapping kinetics of Fe-doped AlGaN/GaN HEMTs

In this paper, we investigate the trapping effects, of iron doped AlGaN/GaN HEMTs, before and after on-wafer 24 hour RF stress test. First, we study the trap centers responsible of the current collapse at different on-state bias and temperature conditions. Second, we investigate 24 hour RF stress effect on the trapping kinetics.By filling traps under off-state condition with high drain-source voltage, we have identified two prominent traps labelled E₁ and E₂ with activation energies of 0.7 eV and 0.6 eV under the conduction band, respectively. An increase of the amplitude of the trap centers E₁ and E₂ by 22.9% and 15.8% respectively is noticed during the RF stress. This result suggests that the degradation observed during RF stress might have induced a density increase of the traps involved in the E₁ and E₂ trap signatures responsible on the current collapse.     

Thermal storage effects on AlGaN/GaN HEMT

The effects of thermal storage on GaN–HEMT devices grown on SiC substrate have been investigated by DC and pulsed electrical measurements, breakdown measurements (by means of a Transmission Line Pulser, TLP), and optical and electron microscopy. After 3000 h of thermal storage testing at 300 °C, only a limited reduction of the DC drain saturation current and of the transconductance peak was observed (20% and 25% decrease, respectively). However, pulsed measurements on aged devices clearly highlight a dramatic current collapse effect that has been attributed to a creation of surface traps in the gate-to-drain and gate-to-source access region. On-state breakdown characterization carried out on aged devices did not highlight any noticeable changes with respect to the untreated devices similarly to the DC characterization. Failure analyses have demonstrated that a loss of adhesion of the passivation layer was responsible for the observed trap formation. An improved passivation deposition process was therefore developed, including a surface cleaning procedure aimed at preventing passivation detaching. The devices fabricated using this new procedure do not show any enhancement of trapping effects up to 500 h of thermal stress at 300 °C.