Temperature-Accelerated Degradation of GaN HEMTs under High- Power Stress: Activation Energy of Drain-Current Degradation

Abstract – We have investigated the role of temperature in the degradation of GaN High-Electron-Mobility-Transistors (HEMTs) under high-power stress. We found that two degradation mechanisms take place in a sequential manner: the gate leakage current increases first, followed by a decrease in the drain current. Building on this observation, we demonstrate a new scheme to extract the activation energy (Ea) of device degradation from step-temperature measurements on a single device. The Ea’s we obtained closely agree with those extracted from conventional accelerated life test experiments on a similar device technology. I