Design and TCAD Study of p-GaN Gate HEMT With a Nanowire Structure for Stable V_TH and Self-Clamped Gate Leakage

In this article, a novel p-GaN HEMT is proposed based on an Ohmic p-GaN nanowire gate structure. The p-GaN nanowire structure behaves as a normally on p-FET with MIS-gate characteristics, enabling the device to feature self-clamped <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${I}_{\text {G}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, large <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${g}_{\text {m}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, and a stable <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${V}_{\text {TH}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The proto-type device is successfully fabricated, featuring a stable <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${V}_{\text {TH}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. With the help of TCAD simulation, an in-depth analysis of the operation principle, including <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${I}_{\text {G}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> self-clamp effect, <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${V}_{\text {TH}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> recovery process, and sidewall protection is conducted. Scaling down of the p-GaN nanowire structure is analyzed and proved to be an effective way to optimize its performance, where the trade-off relation between the clamping effect of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${I}_{\text {G}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${V}_{\text {TH}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> recovery speed is revealed.