Impact of Channel Hot Electrons on Current Collapse in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs

This letter studies the current collapse phenomenon during switching in p-GaN gate AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors. It is found that channel hot electrons play a major role in increasing the current collapse and that adding a field plate significantly reduces the effect. By stressing the device with OFF-state pulses of 100 mu s x 10 mu s with a V-GS rise/fall time of 10 ns at V-dc 400 V, compared to the ON-resistance before stress, the ON-resistance was 78 times larger after stress without field plates. With a field plate, it was only 1.8 times larger.