(Invited) Switching Characteristics of GaN Power Transistors

Abstract

A shorter switching time and smaller conduction and switching losses are the key advantages of GaN power devices over Si technology. Further improvements of GaN HEMT technology will require new design approaches including SiC and even, possibly, diamond substrates, gate and drain edge engineering (beyond just using field plates) for optimizing the voltage distribution in the drain-to-gate spacing to using perforated channel design and a low conducting passivation for smoothing or even eliminating the sharp maximum of the electric field in the vicinity of the gate and field plate edges on switching time.