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We present a novel p-gallium nitride (GaN) gate HEMT structure with reduced hole concentration near the Schottky interface by doping engineering in metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), which aims at lowering the electric field across the gate. By employing the additional unintentionally doped GaN (u-GaN) layer, the gate leakage current is suppressed and the gate breakdown voltage is boosted from 10.6 to 14.6 V with negligible influence on the threshold voltage and ON-resistance. A reduced Mg concentration in the u-GaN layer was confirmed by secondary-ion mass spectrometry. Time-dependent gate breakdown measurements reveal that the maximum gate drive voltage increases from 6.2 to 10.6 V for a ten-year lifetime with a 1% gate failure rate, which effectively expands the operating voltage margin of the p-GaN gate HEMTs without any other additional process step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we studied the gate breakdown (BD) mechanisms of p-GaN gate AlGaN/GaN HEMTs by a novel multiple-gate-sweep-based method. For the first time, three different BD mechanisms were observed and identified separately in the same devices: the metal/p-GaN junction BD, the p-GaN/AlGaN/GaN junction BD, and the passivation-related BD. This method is an effective method to determine the BD mechanisms. The different BD mechanisms were further confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Finally, the temperature dependences of the three BD mechanisms were measured and compared. This analysis method was also employed in the devices with a different passivation material and showed its applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This letter systematically investigates the origin of gate-induced floating-body effect (GIFBE) in partially depleted silicon-on-insulator p-type MOSFETs. The experimental results indicate that GIFBE causes a reduction in the electrical oxide field, leading to an underestimate of negative-bias temperature instability degradation. This can be partially attributed to the electrons tunneling from the process-induced partial \n^+ polygate. However, based on different operation conditions, we found that the dominant origin of electrons was strongly dependent on holes in the inversion layer under source/drain grounding. This suggests that the mechanism of GIFBE at higher voltages is dominated by the proposed anode electron injection model, rather than the electron valence band tunneling widely accepted as the mechanism for n-MOSFETs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]