Inverse Piezoelectric and Trap Effects With Temperature Dependence in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs Under Narrowband Microwave Pulses

Abstract

This article aims to study the thermal effect, inverse piezoelectric effect, and trap effect of aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN)/gallium nitride (GaN) high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with injection of narrowband (NB) microwave pulses where sensitive semiconductor devices are often disturbed or even damaged by intentionally electromagnetic interference. A series of AlGaN/GaN HEMT-based power amplifiers is designed and measured by utilizing an NB microwave system. The thermal analysis is performed by observing the temperature and thermal stress distributions over the structure and the temperature transient response in different dc conditions. Moreover, in the inverse piezoelectric analysis, the elastic energy density of AlGaN is calculated using a simulated vertical electric field and compared with the critical value of the material itself. Lastly, to fully understand these two failure mechanisms above on the device degradation, the influences of traps generated by these two effects above are investigated by analyzing the electron movement, trap behavior, and output drain current.