Effect of passivation films on DC characteristics of AlGaN/GaN HEMT

This paper describes results of DC characterization in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs passivated with sputter-deposited SiO₂, SiN or their multilayered dielectric films. The device with SiO₂ passivation exhibited low on-resistance and high breakdown voltage compared to the SiN-passivated device. However, the gate leakage current of the SiO₂-passivated device was higher by one order of magnitude than that of the SiN-passivated one. The newly developed SiN/SiO₂ multilayer-passivated device exhibited much improved characteristics in leakage current and breakdown voltage.