GaN is an attractive material for high performance power devices. Vertical GaN power devices are suitable for high current operation, on the other hand, lateral GaN power devices, namely GaN lateral HEMTs have both low on-resistance and low parasitic capacitance. In addition, the GaN lateral HEMTs can be fabricated on Si substrate. We can get low conduction loss and low switching loss devices with low cost. So the GaN lateral HEMTs are suitable for subsystems like an air conditioner and an electric power steering. Serious technical issues about GaN power devices are a normally-off operation, a current collapse, and a high quality gate insulator. Several normally-off operation techniques have been proposed but there is no decisive method. An NH₃ surface treatment and a SiO₂ passivation are useful to suppress the current collapse. An Al₂O₃ deposited by ALD is excellent for gate insulator in breakdown and it has enough TDDB reliability under room temperature and 150°C.

Date Published: 27 March 2013
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8625, Gallium Nitride Materials and Devices VIII, 86250V (27 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2002248

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8625:
Gallium Nitride Materials and Devices VIII
Jen-Inn Chyi; Yasushi Nanishi; Hadis Morkoç; Joachim Piprek; Euijoon Yoon; Hiroshi Fujioka, Editor(s)