Simulation and analysis of enhancement-mode AlGaN/GaN HEMT with P-I-N junction gate

Abstract

To improve the threshold voltage and gate reliability of conventional enhancement-mode p-GaN-gated AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors while maintaining a low on-resistance, an improved design solution for p-GaN HEMTs with P-I-N junction gate (PIN-HEMTs) has been proposed. Simulation results show that energy band modulation is achieved by adjusting the doping concentration and thickness of each layer of the PIN junction, and high-performance p-GaN gate HEMTs with adjustable threshold voltages ranging from 0.56 V to 4.75 V and gate breakdown voltages ranging from 19.8 V to 30.3 V would be prepared. The PIN-HEMT has a quasi-self-alignment property, which means that good gate control is independent of gate metal alignment. This not only improves the production efficiency but also solves the problems of weak gate control and electric field aggregation at the gate edge caused by the gate misalignment in conventional p-GaN gate HEMTs, thus realizing lower on-resistance and higher gate breakdown voltage, which demonstrates this proposed structure has excellent potentials for realizing effective and reliable high-power transistors.