Investigation of On-Wafer ESD Characteristics (HBM and TLP) of Lateral GaN-on-Si SBDs

In this work, we report human-body-model (HBM) and transmission-line-pulse (TLP) electronic static discharge (ESD) within lateral GaN-on-Si schottky barrier diodes (SBDs). While a single failure was observed in reverse tests at the device snap-back breakdown, forward HBM and TLP tests yielded two-step breakdowns. The first breakdown signified by the device leakage ( ${I}_{\text {leakage}}$ ) caused irreversible degradation of the Schottky junction, which is more suited to define the forward ESD failures than the second snap-back breakdown. The correlation resistance was 1.5 $\text{K}\Omega $ between the forward HBM and TLP failures. Static dc characteristics of the devices were analyzed after each pulse, revealing limited soft degradation due to surface and interface trap states. These results can deepen the understanding of the ESD reliability of GaN SBDs and help improve these devices in various applications as rectifiers, varactors, and GaN-based ESD protection circuits.