Impacts of Thermal Atomic Layer-Deposited AlN Passivation Layer on GaN-on-Si High Electron Mobility Transistors.

Thermal atomic layer deposition (ALD)-grown AlN passivation layer is applied on AlGaN/GaN-on-Si HEMT, and the impacts on drive current and leakage current are investigated. The thermal ALD-grown 30-nm amorphous AlN results in a suppressed off-state leakage; however, its drive current is unchanged. It was also observed by nano-beam diffraction method that thermal ALD-amorphous AlN layer barely enhanced the polarization. On the other hand, the plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD)-deposited SiN layer enhanced the polarization and resulted in an improved drive current. The capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement also indicates that thermal ALD passivation results in a better interface quality compared with the SiN passivation.

AlGaN/GaN MISHEMTs with AlN gate dielectric grown by thermal ALD technique.

Recently, AlN plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (ALD) passivation technique had been proposed and investigated for suppressing the dynamic on-resistance degradation behavior of high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs). In this paper, a novel gate dielectric and passivation technique for GaN-on-Si AlGaN/GaN metal-insulator-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistors (MISHEMTs) is presented. This technique features the AlN thin film grown by thermal ALD at 400°C without plasma enhancement. A 10.6-nm AlN thin film was grown upon the surface of the HEMT serving as the gate dielectric under the gate electrode and as the passivation layer in the access region at the same time. The MISHEMTs with thermal ALD AlN exhibit enhanced on/off ratio, reduced channel sheet resistance, reduction of gate leakage by three orders of magnitude at a bias of 4 V, reduced threshold voltage hysteresis of 60 mV, and suppressed current collapse degradation.