Improved Vth Stability and Gate Reliability of GaN-Based MIS-HEMTs by Employing Alternating O2 Plasma Treatment

Xinling Xie; Qiang Wang; Maolin Pan; Penghao Zhang; Luyu Wang; Yannan Yang; Hai Huang; Xin Hu; Min Xu

doi:10.3390/nano14060523

Improved V_th Stability and Gate Reliability of GaN-Based MIS-HEMTs by Employing Alternating O₂ Plasma Treatment

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2024 Mar 14;14(6):523. doi: 10.3390/nano14060523.

Authors

Xinling Xie¹, Qiang Wang¹, Maolin Pan¹, Penghao Zhang¹, Luyu Wang¹, Yannan Yang¹, Hai Huang¹, Xin Hu¹, Min Xu¹

Affiliation

¹ State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, School of Microelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.

Abstract

The V_th stability and gate reliability of AlGaN/GaN metal-insulator-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistors (MIS-HEMTs) with alternating O₂ plasma treatment were systematically investigated in this article. It was found that the conduction band offset at the Al₂O₃/AlGaN interface was elevated to 2.4 eV, which contributed to the suppressed gate leakage current. The time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) test results showed that the ALD-Al₂O₃ with the alternating O₂ plasma treatment had better quality and reliability. The AlGaN/GaN MIS-HEMT with the alternating O₂ plasma treatment demonstrated remarkable advantages in higher V_th stability under high-temperature and long-term gate bias stress.

Keywords: AlGaN/GaN MIS-HEMT; gate reliability; threshold voltage stability.

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.