Novel Bidirectional ESD Circuit for GaN HEMT.

Area of Science:

• Semiconductor Device Physics
• Electrical Engineering
• Materials Science

Background:

• p-GaN gate High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) are crucial for high-power applications.
• Ensuring robust Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) protection is vital for the reliability of these devices.
• Existing ESD protection circuits may have limitations in bidirectional protection or power efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and investigate a novel ESD protection circuit for p-GaN gate HEMTs.
• To achieve reliable bidirectional ESD protection with a clamp circuit.
• To enhance the secondary breakdown current capability and reduce static power loss.

Main Methods:

• Design of an ESD clamp circuit comprising series forward diodes and a reverse diode.
• Experimental verification of the proposed ESD clamp's performance under transient ESD pulses.
• Analysis of the discharging channel formation and voltage clamping behavior.

Main Results:

• The proposed ESD clamp circuit demonstrates effective bidirectional ESD protection functionality.
• It successfully clamps the gate-to-source voltage of p-GaN HEMTs to a safe level.
• The circuit exhibits a high secondary breakdown current in both forward and reverse transient ESD events.
• Experimental verification confirms reduced power loss in a static state.

Conclusions:

• The developed bidirectional clamp circuit offers a viable solution for ESD protection in p-GaN gate HEMTs.
• This approach enhances device robustness against ESD events while improving power efficiency.
• The findings contribute to the advancement of reliable high-power semiconductor devices.