Experimental study on the electrical characteristic of a GaN hybrid drain-embedded gate injection transistor (HD-GIT)

Abstract

The hybrid drain-embedded gate injection transistor (HD-GIT) is a well-developed structure of GaN-based power transistor which solves the issues of current collapse and negative gate threshold voltage. In this paper, the electrical characteristic of a HD-GIT-based GaN power transistor is investigated with experimental study. Based on the gate I-V relationship, the design of the gate driver circuit is discussed. The gate driving losses as well as the switching waveforms of the HD-GIT under hard-switching operations are analyzed. Besides speeding up the switching operation, the reduction in the gate voltage and gate charge saves the gate driving power. These features substantially increase the maximum operating frequency of the HD-GIT-based power converter. The current collapse free operation allows the device working at a wide range of voltage and duty cycle without notable degradation of the dynamic on-state resistance.