{"title":"Effects of reverse gate-drain breakdown on gradual degradation of power PHEMTs","authors":"R. Leoni, J.C.M. Hwang","doi":"10.1109/GAAS.1996.567630","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The gradual degradation effects of reverse gate-drain breakdown which often occurs in high-efficiency operation of power PHEMTs were studied. Similar to MESFETs, PHEMTs were founded to be susceptible to breakdown-induced trap formation in the silicon-nitride surface passivation, the figure of merit against such degradation being approximately two orders of magnitude lower for PHEMTs than for MESFETs. Thus, even if a PHEMT has the same breakdown voltage as a MESFET, the former cannot be driven with as high a drain voltage as the latter. In addition, unlike MESFETs, PHEMTs can undergo an initial power expansion before power slump, due to breakdown-induced donor activation. Therefore, care must be taken to stress PHEMTs sufficiently in order to ascertain their stability against degradation.","PeriodicalId":365997,"journal":{"name":"GaAs IC Symposium IEEE Gallium Arsenide Integrated Circuit Symposium. 18th Annual Technical Digest 1996","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"1996-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"15","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"GaAs IC Symposium IEEE Gallium Arsenide Integrated Circuit Symposium. 18th Annual Technical Digest 1996","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GAAS.1996.567630","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 15
Abstract
The gradual degradation effects of reverse gate-drain breakdown which often occurs in high-efficiency operation of power PHEMTs were studied. Similar to MESFETs, PHEMTs were founded to be susceptible to breakdown-induced trap formation in the silicon-nitride surface passivation, the figure of merit against such degradation being approximately two orders of magnitude lower for PHEMTs than for MESFETs. Thus, even if a PHEMT has the same breakdown voltage as a MESFET, the former cannot be driven with as high a drain voltage as the latter. In addition, unlike MESFETs, PHEMTs can undergo an initial power expansion before power slump, due to breakdown-induced donor activation. Therefore, care must be taken to stress PHEMTs sufficiently in order to ascertain their stability against degradation.