High Voltage Screening of GaAs Power FET's: Effect on Burn-In Yield and Modes of Catastrophic Device Failure

High voltage DC screening virtually eliminates the catastrophic burn-in failure mode of GaAs Power FETs during DC biased burn-in testing. Catastrophic damage during DC high-voltage screening of power GaAs MESFET's was limited by an ultra-fast circuit breaker. Failures were found to be primarily due to gate-drain runaways that occur at or near the surface.