Degradation of 600V GaN HEMTs under Repetitive Short Circuit Conditions

This paper describes the results of repetitive short circuit (SC) measurements of power GaN HEMTs with p-GaN gates. Description of test setup and measurement method is presented. Typical measured waveforms and basic description of effects during SC are presented and discussed. Also impact of repetitive SC stress on degradation of electrical characteristics and performance of the devices was analysed. Experiments show that samples repeatedly exposed to SC are measurably degraded by the stress conditions when high current and high voltage are simultaneously present on the device. Degradation of device parameters in relation to number of SC pulses and drain voltage is described and discussed.