TY - JOUR
T1 - Experimental Study on the Short-Circuit Instability of Cascode GaN HEMTs
AU - Xue, Peng
AU - Maresca, Luca
AU - Riccio, Michele
AU - Breglio, Giovanni
AU - Irace, Andrea
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - This article presents an experimental investigation on the short-circuit (SC) instability of several commercially available cascode gallium nitride (GaN) high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs). In the SC test, self-sustained oscillation is observed during the SC transient. The SC oscillation features some unique characteristics. The gate resistor shows very weak damping effect on the SC oscillation. The SC oscillation thereby cannot be suppressed by utilizing a large gate resistor. With the increase in the dc-bus voltage, the SC oscillation greatly amplifies and becomes more unstable. When the dc-bus voltage reaches 200-250 V, catastrophic failure occurs. In the SC test, two distinct failure modes, which are related to the failure of low-voltage (LV) MOSFET and depletion-mode HEMTs (DHEMTs), are identified. Based on the experimental evidence and simulation study, the root causes of the failure are clarified in the end.
AB - This article presents an experimental investigation on the short-circuit (SC) instability of several commercially available cascode gallium nitride (GaN) high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs). In the SC test, self-sustained oscillation is observed during the SC transient. The SC oscillation features some unique characteristics. The gate resistor shows very weak damping effect on the SC oscillation. The SC oscillation thereby cannot be suppressed by utilizing a large gate resistor. With the increase in the dc-bus voltage, the SC oscillation greatly amplifies and becomes more unstable. When the dc-bus voltage reaches 200-250 V, catastrophic failure occurs. In the SC test, two distinct failure modes, which are related to the failure of low-voltage (LV) MOSFET and depletion-mode HEMTs (DHEMTs), are identified. Based on the experimental evidence and simulation study, the root causes of the failure are clarified in the end.
U2 - 10.1109/TED.2020.2974518
DO - 10.1109/TED.2020.2974518
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0018-9383
VL - 67
SP - 1686
EP - 1692
JO - IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
JF - IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
IS - 4
ER -