Impacts of SiN passivation on the degradation modes of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors under reverse-bias stress

Impacts of SiN passivation on the degradation modes of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors are investigated. The gate leakage current decreases significantly upon removing the SiN layer and no clear critical voltage for the sudden degradation of the gate leakage current can be observed in the reverse-bias step-stress experiments. Gate-lag measurements reveal the decrease of the fast-state surface traps and the increase of slow-state traps after the passivation layer removal. It is postulated that consistent surface charging relieves the electric field peak on the gate edge, thus the inverse piezoelectric effect is shielded.