1.5-kV AlGaN/GaN MIS-HEMT With 3-D Stacking Pad-Connected Schottky Structure Demonstrating Radiation Robustness Against Atmospheric Neutrons

Atmospheric neutron-induced single-event burnout (SEB) is a severe reliability challenge for terrestrial electronic components. In this work, the robust atmospheric neutron irradiation-hardened capability is demonstrated in AlGaN/GaN MIS-HEMTs with 3-D stacking pad-connected Schottky structure. Such device design notably contributes to the removal of holes caused by neutron lattice collisions, thereby improving irradiation robustness against SEB. The resulting device exhibits significantly improved SEB voltage from 864 V to 1533 V at a high neutron (greater than 10 MeV) fluence of
$5.38 \times 10^{{11}}$
n/cm2. In particular, an ultra-low failure-in-time (FIT) rate of 0.82 is achieved at 1200-V irradiation bias based on JEDEC accelerated testing. These results set a new neutron irradiation record for GaN-based power devices, thus make a significant step toward reaching the promise of GaN devices for irradiation applications.