Rad-Hard RESURF HEMT for Space Applications
Abstract
The impact of the space environment on the physics of semiconductors include the mechanism for changes of electrical properties of an irradiated electrical structure. In this proposal we are planning to design, fabrication and test a radiation tolerant on GaN HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor) devices which are compatible with RF communication and power conversion circuits. GaN-HEMT (High-Electron Mobility Transistors) are the most promising candidates for highly efficient power converters due to the high switching speeds, enabled by the 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) channel region and low on-state resistance. However, when considering the susceptibility of single event burnout (SEB) resulting from a heavy ion strike, GaN power devices (and other wide-bandgap power devices) perform significantly worse than silicon-based counterparts due to extremely high electric fields coupled with ion-induced shortcircuits between the transistor source and drain regions. HEMTs that meet the 1/QGRon were demonstrated [1], [2] however they were not designed to be radiations tolerant or compatible with CMOS technologies. In this proposal we have two main claims: First, designing new HEMT that are more radiation tolerant during a heavy ion strike. This will be achieved by embedding a layer of charge under the 2DEG channel region sufficient to mitigate ion-induce electric field pileup and lowering the overall susceptibility of the device to single event burnout. Implanting activated charges in HEMTs Devices have been demonstrated before only to achieve isolation. This was demonstrated experimentally to be a more successful method over mesa etching lower leakage and higher breakdown voltage of isolation regions are observed. [3][4]Second, we propose an innovative opportunity to grow the GaN-HEMT on a sacrificial layer, from which the GaN-HEMT can be released and transferred to any VLSI chip using a micro-transfer printing technology. There are many advantages of this innovative processing technique, one of which is the consideration of transferring GaN-HEMTs to an integrated circuit, for example, an IC comprised of nanoscale (sub-20nm) bulk FinFET technologies, which have been shown to be very robust against both TID and single event effects. [5][1]F. Roccaforte et al., #An overview of normally-off GaN-based high electron mobility transistors,# Materials, vol. 12, no. 10. 2019, doi: 10.3390/ma12101599.[2]C. T. Ma and Z. H. Gu, #Review of GaN HEMT applications in power converters over 500 W,# Electronics (Switzerland), vol. 8, no. 12. 2019, doi: 10.3390/electronics8121401.[3]H. Yu et al., #Leakage mechanism in ion implantation isolated AlGaN/GaN heterostructures,# J. Appl. Phys., vol. 131, no. 3, p. 35701, 2022, doi: 10.1063/5.0076243.[4]Haifeng Sun et al., #Nanometric AlGaN/GaN HEMT Performance with Implant or Mesa Isolation,# IEEE electron device Lett., vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 1056#1058, 2011, doi: 10.1109/LED.2011.2151172.[5]T. J. Anderson et al., #Electrothermal evaluation of thick GaN epitaxial layers and AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors on large-area engineered substrates,# Appl. Phys. Express, vol. 10, no. 12, 2017, doi: 10.7567/APEX.10.126501.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 11, 2023
- Source ID
- N000142312781
Entities
People
- Mona Ebrish
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- Vanderbilt University