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Solid-State Electronics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sse
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Since it is naturally normally-off, the hybrid AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT has a tremendous potential for an
Received 19 July 2010 advanced GaN-based power switch. An analytical model for the hybrid AlGaN/GaN HEMT on-resistance
Received in revised form 8 November 2010 is presented in this paper. The methodology presented here can aid the designers to understand the phys-
Accepted 19 November 2010
ics and to electrically characterize the new generation of GaN based devices. The models proposed here
Available online 21 December 2010
can also easily be implemented in TCAD simulation packages where models for GaN devices are not
The review of this paper was arranged by mature.
Prof. S. Cristoloveanu Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
GaN
AlGaN
Hybrid MOS-HEMT
MOSFET
HEMT
Model
On-resistance
0038-1101/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.sse.2010.11.016
202 A. Pérez-Tomás, A. Fontserè / Solid-State Electronics 56 (2011) 201–206
2. GaN MOSFET and AlGaN/GaN HEMT on resistance gion (or extended drain) to improve the breakdown voltage is consid-
ered (LD-MOSFET). There, LD is the drift region length, ND is the
One great advantages of GaN as power semiconductor substrate doping of the drift region, lB is the bulk n-type extended drain mobil-
is that transistor effect could be achieved by defining the inversion ity (lB is a function of ND and the temperature) and Xj is the carrier
channel under a MOS gate or by taking advantage of the hetero- flow depth in the extended drain region. For the HEMT, the sheet car-
interface 2DEG charge centroid (Fig. 2). Both mechanisms are dis- rier density on the 2D electron gas, ns, may be determined by means
cussed briefly in the next section. In MOSFET and HEMT transistors of Hall bar measurements and/or capacitance measurements. ln is in
on-resistance have been linked to the channel layout and electron this case the mobility of electrons in the 2DEG channel. The sheet car-
mobility properties by analytical relationships for low transverse rier density on the 2D electron gas, ns, can been determined by means
fields [9]: of Hall bar measurements and/or capacitance measurements. Cox is
the gate oxide capacitance per unit area.
Lch LD
Ron ðMOSFETÞ ¼ Ron;M ¼ þ ðL þ L Þ
ln C ox ðV gs V th Þ qlB ND Xj ch D
2.1. MOS inversion channel mobility
ð1Þ
1
1 1 1 1 to a quantization of the energy-band structure into sub-bands.
lMOS ¼ þ þ þ ð3Þ The main scattering mechanisms in a 2DEG channel are well
lB lac lsr lc
reported [14]. The 2DEG mobility is modelled analytically as the
There, lac is the carrier mobility limited by the acoustic phonons sum of several contributions including acoustic deformation-po-
scattering and lsr is the carrier mobility limited by surface rough- tential, piezoelectric, polar optic phonon, alloy disorder, interface
ness scattering. It has been proposed [10–12] mobility models for roughness, dislocation and remote modulation doping scattering.
describing the mobility degradation observed in MOSFET devices Therefore, the total relaxation time could be calculated as the
due to Coulomb scattering effects at interface traps (lc). Generally, sum of the relaxation times due to each scattering process follow-
in GaN and SiC MOSFETs this interface trap Coulomb scattering lim- ing again the Matthiessen’s Rule. At temperatures above 80 K,
iting mechanism is so relevant that the approximation ln(MOS- the validity of this relation becomes questionable due to the
FET) ’ lc could be used, in particular at the lower gate bias and at relaxation-time approximation made for inelastic optical pho-
low temperature. (T = 25 °C). Phenomenologically, we have demon- non scattering. However, the polar optical phonon scattering
strated [10] that MOS inversion mobility in a highly defective GaN/ (ln(HEMT) ’ lpo) is the dominant scattering mechanism for the
insulator interface could be well fitted by determining Qinv and 2DEG in a wide temperature range since the impurity scattering
Qtrap: is minimized, due to spatial separation of electrons and ionized
Q binv Qb impurities, being especially true for temperatures above 300 K.
A
lc ¼ T þ NT a ’ NT a inv ð4Þ Eq. (5) describes this mobility for a 2DEG using the conventional
Q trap Q trap Q trap
relaxation-time approximation for the case when the optical-pho-
where A and N are fitting constants, a and b are empirical constants non energy is greater than the thermal energy [15]:
for describing the screening of the scattering charges by the mobile 0 0 11
1 1 2 hx mph2 ns
charges in the inversion layer and experimentally determined to ðe1
s;1 es Þ k0
h 0 1 e k T
B
Fig. 3. (a) Computed Qtrap and Qinv and experimental ns [17] vs. temperature. (b) Experimental (symbols) vs. simulated (solid lines) electron mobility for MOSFETs and HEMTs.
204 A. Pérez-Tomás, A. Fontserè / Solid-State Electronics 56 (2011) 201–206
2.3. MOSFET vs. HEMT The hybrid MOS-HEMT specific on-resistance depends on the
layout parameters (LGS, LG and LGD), the carrier concentration in
Eqs. (4) and (6) are physical-based expressions for describing the 2DEG (ns) and in the inversion channel (Cox(Vgs Vth)) and their
the electron transistor mobility on the MOS inversion and 2DEG respective mobility values, l2DEG and lMOS. In the simplest of MOS-
channel at elevated temperatures, respectively. Qtrap and Qinv may FET theories (which is in the basis of the MOS term of Eq. (1) [19])
be calculated following the procedure described in [10]. A Qinv = q1Cox(Vgs Vth) is obtained from a standard parallel-plate
charge-sheet model simplifies the calculation of inversion charge capacitor where the charge on the capacitor plates is equal to the
assuming that the inversion layer is a charge sheet of infinitesimal capacitance times the voltage drop between the plates. The charge
thickness. The charge-sheet model equations are also used to com- added to the gate is balanced by an increase in the inversion layer
pute the average effective field in the inversion layer. The reason charge. This expression is already useful because can provide valu-
for the large mobility difference depicted in Fig. 3 is that, in the able information to the device designers. Computations have been
MOSFET, conduction electrons occupy the same space region than performed taking into account the values commonly reported on
ionized impurities and hence, channel mobility is limited (in the the literature on the previous values and listed in Table 1.
ideal case of a perfect MOS interface) at least by bulk carrier mobil- A conventional device layout of 1.5/1/6 lm (LGS/LG/LGD) has
ity (lB). MOSFET mobility is in practice a fraction of the semicon- been chosen which is typical of power HEMTs for the range of
ductor bulk mobility due to scattering effects at the MOS the 600 V. For a given gate bias, the hybrid MOS-HEMT is strongly
interface, mainly Coulomb scattering at interface traps, that is dra- dependent on MOS channel mobility which is presumably the
matically relevant in GaN based MOSFETs. In HEMTs polar optical more difficult parameter to control. As it can be seen in Fig. 4 the
phonon limited mobility is already higher than the bulk mobility Ron increases as the channel mobility reduces from the state-of-
for GaN under the same transverse electric field. the art value of 200 cm2/V s [4] to values of 20–100 cm2/V s. To de-
posit an oxide on the selectively etched channel region would re-
3. AlGaN/GaN hybrid MOS-HEMT analytical mobility model sult in an oxide interface with rougher interfaces and with a
Table 1
Parameters included in the computation of the on-resistance of the hybrid MOS-
HEMT.
Fig. 7. HEMT mobility dependence on: (a) T and (c) ns. (b) MOS Qinv dependence on T. Qinv(T) is computed by a temperature dependent charge-sheet model for Vgs Vth = 4 V
giving a value of n = 2.4 [10]. HEMT mobility constants c = 2.7 and d = 0.3 have been fitted to the computed Eq. (5) for ns = 1 1013 cm2 and T = 300 K, respectively.
206 A. Pérez-Tomás, A. Fontserè / Solid-State Electronics 56 (2011) 201–206
4. Conclusions