학술논문

Route Toward Commercially Manufacturable Vertical GaN Devices
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices IEEE Trans. Electron Devices Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on. 71(3):1488-1493 Mar, 2024
Subject
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Substrates
Logic gates
Epitaxial growth
Silicon
Resistance
MOSFET
Performance evaluation
GaN
manufacturability
power
trench gate MOSFET
vertical devices
Language
ISSN
0018-9383
1557-9646
Abstract
To make vertical GaN-based trench gate MOSFET devices commercially manufacturable, 200 mm engineered substrates with a poly-AlN core are a good substrate choice. The poly-AlN core, matched in thermal expansion to GaN, allows to grow high-quality thick GaN layers. Up to $11 ~\mu \text{m}$ -thick GaN stacks were grown crack-free, with excellent control over the wafer warp. Breakdown values of 900 V were reached for the vertical p/n-junction. Full device processing was completed in a CMOS-compatible pilot line without any wafer breakage, demonstrating the mechanical strength of these substrates. On module level, a new gate trench profile combining a smooth sidewall and round corners, is presented. While a smooth sidewall is important for the ON-state performance of the devices, the rounded corners are beneficial for the OFF-state operation. A semi-vertical test vehicle was used to demonstrate the ON-state of the fabricated power transistors. For devices with an effective gate width ( ${W}_{\text {G,eff}}$ ) of 180 mm and an active area of 1.4 mm2, an ON-state resistance could be achieved of 8 $\text{m}\Omega \cdot \text {cm}^{{2}}$ . By scaling the source contact length down, the device footprint could be decreased further. It is shown that for devices with a ${W}_{\text {G,eff}}$ of 60 mm this value could be further improved with best performing devices showing a 6.2 $\text{m}\Omega \cdot \text {cm}^{{2}}$ ON-state resistance.