Simulation solutions for power GaN technologies

AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are now being realized as the future of semiconductor industry post Silicon. The RF modeling of III-V HEMTs in general has been a research topic since 1980's, however, to author's knowledge, High Voltage (HV) modeling of III-V power HEMTs has hitherto been a relatively uncharted territory. Although, various companies manufacturing these power III-V HEMTs do provide compact models with their PDKs for integrated devices or as standalone models for packaged (discrete) devices, they were found to be heavily inuenced by the Low Voltage (LV) or RF modeling procedures that have been established over the years. The aim of this thesis is to venture into the compact modeling of both power (HV) and LV AlGaN/GaN HEMTs, at times using the excellence of methods and strategies that have been developed and frequently used for LV and RF compact modeling, i.e. not dropping them altogether, and then adding improvisations on top of it to produce a robust modeling approach towards power III-V HEMTs, with power AlGaN/GaN HEMTs as an example.

In particular, the work done in this thesis covers DC, pulsed DC, part RF (S-parameter), large-signal, statistical, trap, extreme environment (temperature and radiation) and p-GaN layer charge modeling of both HV/LV AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. This work can be treated either as a research output, guiding the design and modeling of newer AlGaN/GaN HV/LV HEMTs or as a general guiding principle for future HV/LV FET compact modeling, i.e., the models and methods developed in this work can be further applied to other HV devices such as LD MOS, HV MOSFETs and HV HEMTs/FETs present in various upcoming power semiconductor technologies such as SiC.