Trapping and High Electric Field Parasitic and Degradation phenomena in AlGaN/GaN power HEMTs

With this paper we present an overview of the parasitic mechanisms that limit the performance of power HEMTs, which are characteristic of the high electric fields reached by these devices during operation. More specifically, we describe the following phenomena: (i) long-term trapping of electrons in the gate-drain access region, with subsequent modification in the static and dynamic value of Ron; (ii) the degradation of the gate junction, due to a defect generation/percolation process which occurs at high reverse bias; (iii) the degradation of HEMTs due to hot-electron related phenomena.