Monolithic enhancement-mode and depletion-mode GaN-based MOSHEMTs

GaN-based metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistors (MOSHEMTs) with outstanding properties of high operation speed and high breakdown voltage are promising for high frequency switching operation in ICs. To further develop the GaN-based digital ICs, the AlGaN/GaN MOSHEMT inverters integrated with the enhancement/depletion-mode (E/D-mode) transistors were investigated. In this work, the ferroelectric LiNbO₃ (LNO) gate oxide layer and the photoelectrochemical (PEC)-recessed structure were simultaneously utilized to fabricate the critical E-mode AlGaN/GaN MOSHEMTs. Among the ferroelectric materials, the high dielectric constant LNO film with the larger spontaneous polarization of 80 μC/cm², the wider bandgap of 3.9 eV, and the lower interface state density on the GaN-based semiconductor was beneficial to the modulation of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) channel and the reduction of the gate leakage current. Besides, using the PEC-recessed structure could improve the transconductance of the E-mode transistors and adjust the operation current of the D-mode transistors without destroying the etched AlGaN surface. Instead of the typical tuning area size method, the PEC etching method was demonstrated in this work to adjust the current ratio (β) of the E/D-mode transistors with keeping the matched area size for the miniaturization of the AlGaN/GaN MOSHEMT inverters. From the voltage transfer curve, the corresponded V_OUT was equaled to V_IN = V_DD/2 = 2.5 V, and the output swing were about 4.9 V_p-p as the input signal was 5 V_p-p. It revealed that the resulting AlGaN/GaN MOSHEMT inverter with the β of 25 was operated as a high performance un-skewed inverter.