Investigation on Switching Characteristic Degradation and Single-Event Burnout Mechanism Caused by Ta Heavy Ions in p-GaN Gate HEMTs

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the switching characteristic degradation and single-event burnout mechanism of Ta high-energy particles on the p-GaN gate HEMTs under high-voltage bias. The irradiated device saturation current decreases and the on-resistance increases. The gate leakage current increases by two and three orders of magnitude at off and on states. The dynamic switching characteristics of irradiated devices in the circuit are characterized for the first time through double-pulse test (DPT). It is found that the conduction ability of irradiated devices is seriously affected at conduction state. Under 350-V high-voltage bias stress, the turn-on/off time of irradiated device increases by 20/12 ns and turn-on/off loss increases by 10.19/ $1.39~\mu $ J at ${V}_{\text {DS}} = {75}$ V. In addition, an obvious burnout point is viewed on the drain electrode. More significantly, high-energy incident particle Ta element is directly observed in the failure cavities for the first time. The potential burnout mechanism may be the heat accumulation in the GaN and substrate materials is difficult to release in a short time, resulting in the formation of cavities. The single-event effect (SEE) research of Ta particles on the p-GaN gate HEMTs is greatly significant on the development of GaN-based devices aerospace technology application in radiation environment.