Damage Mechanism of GaN HEMT and Failure Analysis of Power Amplifier Under High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse

With the growing complexity of electromagnetic environments, electronic systems suffer from prominent strong electromagnetic interference in practical service. As a key component implementing power amplification and transmission in communication systems, interference and damage effects of a GaN HEMT power amplifier under High-altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) directly affect the regular operation of systems. In this paper, a physical device model and an injection source model are built first; injection simulations of different HEMP pulses are adopted to analyze internal temperature and current density distributions, predicting vulnerable positions of the device under gate injection. A GaN HEMT power amplifier based on CGH40010F is then established to investigate the failure mechanism under HEMP injection and the damage effect of different pulse parameters. An injection experiment system is conducted according to HEMP pulse standard; results indicate that power amplifier failure stems from GaN HEMT device destruction. The damage evolution is tightly associated with injected energy accumulation, and the gate–source channel is the susceptible region for GaN HEMT under gate injection. These conclusions can provide important references for the protective design of GaN HEMT power amplifiers.