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Influence of High-k Passivation Layer on Gate Field Plate AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN Double Heterojunction HEMT

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Abstract

In this work, we have analysed the influence of passivation material such as Silicon dioxide (SiO2), Silicon Nitride (Si3N4), Aluminium oxide (Al2O3), Hafnium Silicon Oxide (HfSiO4), Yttrium Oxide (Y2O3), Hafnium Oxide (HfO2), Lanthanum Oxide (La2O3), and Titanium Oxide (TiO2) on the operational characteristics of gate field plate Al0.3Ga0.7 N/GaN/Al0.04Ga0.96 N Double Heterojunction (DH) HEMTs on silicon carbide substrate. The proposed DH-HEMT device structure having 0.25 μm gate length, 0.5 μm passivation thickness, 1 μm field plate length, and 3.2 μm gate to drain distance were used in numerical simulation. The off-state breakdown voltage (VBR), maximum transconductance (gm), ON resistance (RON), intrinsic capacitances (CGS and CGD), and cut-off frequency (fT) were investigated. From the analysis it was observed that the breakdown voltage (VBR) of the DH-HEMT is improved with high-k passivation layers, however, VBR does not increase for an increase in permittivity of different passivation material beyond a certain value. The La2O3 passivation DH-HEMT shows the highest breakdown voltage of 773 V than SiO2. Moreover, La2O3 yields better IDMAX, gm, and fT among the other passivation materials used in this work. The Al2O3 passivation layer DH-HEMT device shows 31 THz.V of JFoM, and a very low ON-resistance of 0.95 Ω.mm. From this analysis, the performance characteristics of various passivation layer material were observed and will be helpful for the selection of suitable passivation material for future GaN-based HEMT applications.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India for providing the support and facility to carry out this research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Anil Neerukonda Institute of Technology and Sciences, Visakhapatnam, India

    Ramkumar Natarajan & P. Murugapandiyan

  2. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, SRM Institute of Technology and Sciences, Chennai, India

    Eswaran Parthasarathy

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  1. Ramkumar Natarajan
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  3. P. Murugapandiyan
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All the works in this paper have done together by Ramkumar Natarajan, Eswaran Parthasarathy and P. Murugapandiyan.

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Correspondence to Eswaran Parthasarathy.

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Natarajan, R., Parthasarathy, E. & Murugapandiyan, P. Influence of High-k Passivation Layer on Gate Field Plate AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN Double Heterojunction HEMT. Silicon 14, 10437–10445 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-022-01746-z

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