Characterization of soft dielectric breakdown in GaN MOSHEMTs

Principal Investigator: Peter Bermel

Power electronics convert alternating to direct current, and play a critical role in cyberphysical system infrastructure, from personal transportation to grid-level battery storage. Current state-of-the-art power electronics are gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs).  GaN HEMTs support higher operating voltages, allowing for highly efficient operations, but are subject to high power drains in the off state through gate current leakage.  GaN MOSHEMTs are an attractive successor to GaN HEMTs since the addition of a gate oxide significantly reduces the gate leakage.  However, before MOSHEMTs can be widely adopted, their reliability and corresponding modes of degradation must be well understood and predictable.  In this work, soft breakdown of the gate dielectric in GaN MOSHEMTs is characterized and modeled using a constant voltage source for degradation. This will enable work at higher levels to design devices and systems with well-characterized failure rates for secure cyberphysical system applications.

Personnel

Other PIs: Peide Ye Ali Shakouri

Other Faculty: Justin Weibel

Students: David Kortge Jinhyun Noh Xiao Lyu

Representative Publications

• Noh, Jinhyun, Sami Alajlouni, Marko J. Tadjer, James C. Culbertson, Hagyoul Bae, Mengwei Si, Hong Zhou, Peter A. Bermel, Ali Shakouri, and D. Ye Peide. "High Performance Beta-Gallium Oxide Nano-Membrane Field Effect Transistors on a High Thermal Conductivity Diamond Substrate." IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society 7 (2019): 914-918.

Keywords: cyberphysical systems, GaN HEMTs, reliability