Single-Event and Radiation Effect on Enhancement Mode Gallium Nitride FETs

Lidow, Alex; Nakata, Atsushi; Rearwin, Matt; Strydom, Johan; Zafrani, A. M.

doi:10.1109/redw.2014.7004594

Cited by 32 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…[187][188][189][190][191][192][193] SEU do not necessarily cause permanent damage to the device, but may cause lasting problems to a system which cannot recover from such an error. In very sensitive devices, a single ion can cause a multiple-bit upset (MBU) in several adjacent memory cells.…”

Section: Single Event Upsets In Gan Hemtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Si CMOS circuits, single-event snapback, basically similar to SEL but not requiring the PNPN structure, can be induced in N-channel MOS transistors switching large currents when an ion hits near the drain junction and causes avalanche multiplication of the charge carriers. [188][189][190][191][192][193] Single-event induced burnout (SEB) may occur in power MOSFETs when the substrate right under the source region gets forward-biased and the drain-source voltage is higher than the breakdown voltage of the parasitic structures. The resulting high current and local overheating then may destroy the device.…”

Section: Single Event Upsets In Gan Hemtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Pearton

Ren

Patrick

et al. 2015

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

282

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gallium Nitride based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are attractive for use in high power and high frequency applications, with higher breakdown voltages and two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) density compared to their GaAs counterparts. Specific applications for nitride HEMTs include air, land and satellite based communications and phased array radar. Highly efficient GaNbased blue light emitting diodes (LEDs) employ AlGaN and InGaN alloys with different compositions integrated into heterojunctions and quantum wells. The realization of these blue LEDs has led to white light sources, in which a blue LED is used to excite a phosphor material; light is then emitted in the yellow spectral range, which, combined with the blue light, appears as white. Alternatively, multiple LEDs of red, green and blue can be used together. Both of these technologies are used in high-efficiency white electroluminescent light sources. These light sources are efficient and long-lived and are therefore replacing incandescent and fluorescent lamps for general lighting purposes. Since lighting represents 20-30% of electrical energy consumption, and because GaN white light LEDs require ten times less energy than ordinary light bulbs, the use of efficient blue LEDs leads to significant energy savings. GaN-based devices are more radiation hard than their Si and GaAs counterparts due to the high bond strength in III-nitride materials. The response of GaN to radiation damage is a function of radiation type, dose and energy, as well as the carrier density, impurity content and dislocation density in the GaN. The latter can act as sinks for created defects and parameters such as the carrier removal rate due to trapping of carriers into radiation-induced defects depends on the crystal growth method used to grow the GaN layers. The growth method has a clear effect on radiation response beyond the carrier type and radiation source. We review data on the radiation resistance of AlGaN/GaN and InAlN/GaN HEMTs and GaN-based LEDs to different types of ionizing radiation, and discuss ion stopping mechanisms. The primary energy levels introduced by different forms of radiation, carrier removal rates and role of existing defects in GaN are discussed. The carrier removal rates are a function of initial carrier concentration and dose but not of dose rate or hydrogen concentration in the nitride material grown by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition. Proton and electron irradiation damage in HEMTs creates positive threshold voltage shifts due to a decrease in the two dimensional electron gas concentration resulting from electron trapping at defect sites, as well as a decrease in carrier mobility and degradation of drain current and transconductance. State-of-art simulators now provide accurate predictions for the observed changes in radiation-damaged HEMT performance. Neutron irradiation creates more extended damage regions and at high doses leads to Fermi level pinning while 60 Co γ-ray irradiation leads to much smaller changes in HEMT drain ...

show abstract

Section: Single Event Upsets In Gan Hemtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Single Event Upsets In Gan Hemtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Pearton

Ren

Patrick

et al. 2015

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

282

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, menacing mechanisms such as the single-event burnout can cause the GaN power transistors to fail in space environment [4]. In recent years, the characteristics of GaN transistors under heavy-ion irradiation have been studied [5]- [10]. Several experimental studies have tested the commercial GaN power devices and demonstrated that the SEB could occur under heavy-ion irradiation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An SEB Hardened AlGaN/GaN HEMT With Barrier Interlayer

Zhang

Wang

Wu³

et al. 2020

IEEE Access

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A new single event burnout (SEB) hardened AlGaN/GaN structure with a thin barrier interlayer (IL) is presented in this work. The proposed hardened structure is compared with the simulation results of the conventional structure. The comparative analysis demonstrates that the IL lifts the conduction band energy in buffer layer and a new quantum well is formed. The quantum well limits the electrons induced by heavy ion below the second channel into the first channel. Thus, better SEB performance is achieved compared with the conventional structure. Moreover, the breakdown characteristic of the new structure is significantly improved, while the output characteristic is slightly reduced. Under the condition that the two structures are irradiated vertically by heavy ion having the linear energy transfer (LET) value of 0.6 pC/µm, the SEB threshold voltage of the conventional structure is 280 V, while the hardened structure can achieve 375 V. INDEX TERMS GaN, high-electron mobility transistor (HEMT), single event burnout (SEB), barrier interlayer, SEB threshold voltage.

show abstract

“…Thus, one can assure the reliability of the GaN Operational Amplifier (OPAMP) designed in this work. In this work, we chose GaN HEMT transistors from efficient power conversion (EPC) in order to design the operational amplifier and readout circuit because they show better performance in a radiation environment, as reported in the literature, where negligible variations in the GaN HEMT parameters were reported in a fast neutron ambient (up to a fluence of 1 × 10 15 ) [37][38][39].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

GaN-Based Readout Circuit System for Reliable Prompt Gamma Imaging in Proton Therapy

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Prompt gamma imaging is one of the emerging techniques used in proton therapy for in-vivo range verification. Prompt gamma signals are generated during therapy due to the nuclear interaction between beam particles and nuclei of the tissue that is detected and processed in order to obtain the position and energy of the event so that the benefits of Bragg’s peak can be fully utilized. This work aims to develop a gallium nitride (GaN)-based readout system for position-sensitive detectors. An operational amplifier is the module most used in such a system to process the detector signal, and a GaN-based operational amplifier (OPA) is designed and simulated in LTSpice. The designed circuit had an open-loop gain of 70 dB and a unity gain frequency of 34 MHz. The slew rate of OPA was 20 V/μs and common mode rejection ratio was 84.2 dB. A simulation model of the readout circuit system using the GaN-based operational amplifier was also designed, and the result showed that the system can successfully process the prompt gamma signals. Due to the radiation hardness of GaN devices, the readout circuit system is expected to be more reliable than its silicon counterpart.

show abstract

Single-Event and Radiation Effect on Enhancement Mode Gallium Nitride FETs

Cited by 32 publications

References 1 publication

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

An SEB Hardened AlGaN/GaN HEMT With Barrier Interlayer

GaN-Based Readout Circuit System for Reliable Prompt Gamma Imaging in Proton Therapy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About