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Impacts of SiN passivation on the degradation modes of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors under reverse-bias stress

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4900750· OSTI ID:22310682
; ; ;  [1]; ; ; ;  [2]
  1. School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071 (China)
  2. Key Laboratory of Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Materials and Devices, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071 (China)
Impacts of SiN passivation on the degradation modes of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors are investigated. The gate leakage current decreases significantly upon removing the SiN layer and no clear critical voltage for the sudden degradation of the gate leakage current can be observed in the reverse-bias step-stress experiments. Gate-lag measurements reveal the decrease of the fast-state surface traps and the increase of slow-state traps after the passivation layer removal. It is postulated that consistent surface charging relieves the electric field peak on the gate edge, thus the inverse piezoelectric effect is shielded.
OSTI ID:
22310682
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 17 Vol. 105; ISSN APPLAB; ISSN 0003-6951
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English