The Impact of Load-Dump Stress on p-GaN HEMTs Under Floating Gate Condition

This work investigates the impact of load-dump stress on p-GaN HEMTs under floating gate condition. The experiments show that preconditioning the device with a small load-dump stress (150 V, @td = 100 ms and tr = 8 ms) enhances its robustness against a larger stress (190 V, @td = 100 ms and tr = 8 ms). If a large load-dump stress (≥160 V, @td = 100 ms and tr = 8 ms) is applied directly to the device’s drain, the device will burn out. This occurs because the rapidly changing drain voltage during a load-dump event can generate a capacitive coupling current, leading to transient positive charge accumulation in the gate region. Consequently, the channel under the gate is turned on, allowing a large current to flow through it. The coexistence of high current and high voltage leads to substantial Joule heating within the device, resulting in eventual burnout. When a small load-dump stress is initially applied, the resulting charging of electron traps in the gate region increases the threshold voltage. As a result, the device can withstand a larger load-dump stress before the channel turns on, which explains the device’s enhanced robustness. This work clarifies the failure threshold of p-GaN HEMTs under the load-dump stress, providing key support for improving the devices’ reliability in the practical applications. It can provide a basis for adding necessary protective measures in device circuit design, and clarify the triggering voltage threshold of protective measures to ensure that they can effectively avoid device damage due to the load-dump stress.