2019 6th International Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ICEEE)

Multi-finger High Power Gallium Nitride Based High Electron Mobility Transistors

Jaya Jha, Sreenadh Surapaneni, Akhil Kumar S., Swaroop Ganguly, Dipankar Saha
Department of Electrical Engineering, Centre of Excellence in Nano-electronics,
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India
email: dipankarsaha@iitb.ac.in

Abstract—This work explores the effect of varying widths and

multi-fingers on the DC performance of Gallium Nitride power
High Electron Mobility Transistors (GaN HEMTs). The
experimental observations match with the expected theoretical
calculations. The saturation drain current is found to scale
linearly with width (W) for a fixed number of fingers (n),
whereas it is observed to follow a stronger than expected
dependence on n for a fixed W. This dependence on n tends
towards linear as we go to higher values of drain voltages. The
on-resistance and the maximum transconductance of the
devices, separated from the extra leakage components, follow
the expected dependence on n and W.
Keywords-fingers; GaN; power HEMTs; width
I. INTRODUCTION
AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are found to be advantageous in a
wide variety of applications ranging from high frequency
microwave circuits to high power switching devices because
of their exceptional qualities like high breakdown voltage,
high electron saturation velocity and high mobility due to the
two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) [1-6]. The scaling of
these devices to larger gate widths, keeping the devices
compact, to improve the DC and RF performance and
achieve high power output at high frequencies is of prior
interest in RF applications. Compact multi-finger layout is
useful in high power devices [7-10] which makes it
necessary to study the individual effects of the number of
fingers (n) and the length of each finger (W) on the
performance of these devices.
II. DEVICE FABRICATION AND EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
The schematic of the structure is shown in Figure 1(a).
The fabrication process steps are same as reported earlier
[11-15]. To efficaciously study the effects of width scaling
on GaN power HEMTs, we have fabricated three variations
of n (2,4,6) and four variations of W (75,100,125,150 μm) as
shown in Table 1, keeping all the other dimensions fixed,
giving us enough data points (12) for modeling the critical
parameters such as drain to source saturation current (IDS,sat),
on-resistance (Ron) and maximum transconductance (gm,max).
The gate length for all the devices is 250 nm. The SEM
image of a four-fingered device is shown in Figure 1(b). The
DC characterization is carried out using B1500A
semiconductor device analyzer and M150 Cascade probe
station.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The DC characteristics of the devices for varying widths
at a fixed value of n and varying number of fingers for a
fixed value of W are shown in Figures 2(a)-(d). The analysis
of the DC performance is categorized into two parts: linear
and saturation, using the on-resistance and the saturation
drain current to capture the effects respectively. A three-
dimensional curve fitting is done for all the critical
parameters versus n and W over 12 data points using surface
fitting toolbox in MATLAB. As expected, the drain to source
current increases with increase in number of fingers (n) and
the length of finger (W). But, it is observed that the scaling
of IDS,sat with n is higher than that with W for lower values of
VDS. To examine more, we have plotted IDS,sat/n versus W in
Fig 3(b). Ideally, for each W, the drain current values for all
n should overlap and IDS,sat/n should vary linearly with W.
However, it can be seen that IDS,sat/n is still a function of n at
a fixed W and so, the dependence of IDS,sat on n is non-linear.
So, a three-dimensional curve fitting is done for IDS,sat versus
n and W which gives us the relation,
, =
where, IDS,sat is in Amperes and W is in meters. The variables
a and b are a function of VDS as shown in Fig 3(c). The
dependency of the drain saturation current on n decreases
with increasing VDS and the exponent b, gets closer to 1 as
VDS increases. The value of a and b at VDS=10 V are 99.41
and 1.115 respectively. This extra current with increased
number of fingers is assumed to stem from the parasitic
coupling giving rise to fringe field capacitances as fingers
come in close proximity with each other.
The proportionality factor of the saturation drain current
gives us the product of mobility and 2DEG concentration,
which can be used to compute the value of equivalent
capacitance between the gate and channel. It comes out to be
368 nF/cm2, computed by using the value of a and b at
VDS=10 V, which is comparable to the AlGaN capacitance,
365 nF/cm2, computed using the dielectric constant and
thickness of the AlGaN layer. This confirms the goodness of
the fit as well as ideality of the devices.
Fig. 4(a) shows the drain to source resistance of the
device which is used to capture the linear part of the DC
performance. It consists of two components, the on-
resistance of the channel and the contact resistances of the
drain and source. Theoretically, the on-resistance is inversely
proportional to n and W. Fitting the experimental values of
RDS versus n and W gives us the two different terms:

978-1-7281-3910-4/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE 203

DOI 10.1109/ICEEE2019.2019.00046
 2.4 × 10
= + 6.35
where, RDS is in ohms and W is in meters.
Fig. 4(b) shows the maximum transconductance of the
different devices with varying widths and number of fingers.
It is found to follow the expected behavior of linear
dependence on the total width, with an extra term accounting
for the leakage in the drain and source ends due to the pads.
, = 178 + 0.0166
where, gm,max is in ohms-1 and W is in meters.

Figure 1. (a) Device structure (b) SEM image of a four-fingered device

TABLE I. THE DIFFERENT VARIATIONS OF N AND W AND THE TOTAL WIDTH (WT) OF THE FABRICATED DEVICES

n 2 4 6
W(μm)
75 150 300 450
100 200 400 600
125 250 500 750
150 300 600 900

Figure 2. ID-VDS for (a) different widths at n=4 (b) different number of fingers at W=100 μm and ID-VGS for (c) different widths at n=4 (d) different number
of fingers at W=100 μm

204
Figure 3. (a) IDS,sat versus WT (b) IDS,sat versus W for different values of n (c) Fitting parameters a and b for IDS,sat versus VDS

Figure 4. (a) Drain to source resistance (RDS) versus WT (b) Maximum transconductance (gm,max) versus WT

205
 IV. CONCLUSION
We have analyzed the effects of the number of fingers
and length of each finger on the DC performance of the
devices using the critical parameters like the drain to source
saturation current, the on-resistance of the channel and the
maximum transconductance of the device. The experimental
results match with the theory and help us extract the extra
components due to pad parasitics and other leakage
components.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to acknowledge the Department of
Science and Technology (DST) and Prime Minister’s
Research Fellowship (PMRF) for their support.
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