ESD HBM Discharge Model in RF GaN-on-Si (MIS)HEMTs

We report on our extensive experimental and simulation study to understand ESD failure mechanisms in RF GaN-on-Si (MIS)HEMTs. As opposed to ESD clamp transistors in LV CMOS technologies, a mis-correlation between standard-defined HBM ESD robustness and commonly used TLP failure current was observed in GaN (MIS)HEMTs. Using transient HBM IV characteristics, a novel discharge model is proposed to explain the transient discharge mechanism. The TCAD and SPICE simulations confirmed that the observed mis-correlation between TLP and HBM is attributed to 2DEG channel resistance modulation in response to HBM ESD transient voltage waveforms.