200°C/5 MHz GaN-based gate driver circuits with 1 nF/4.7 Ω RC load for high-temperature high-frequency all-GaN IC applications

• Published in: Electronics letters 2020-10, Vol.56 (22), p.1200-1202
• Main Authors: Xu, Zhe, Zhou, Yang, Xin, Xiong, Wang, Wenjie, Xie, Wuze, Li, Juntao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: aluminium compounds; capacitance 1.0 nF; DCFL inverters; depletion‐mode HEMT; driver circuits; elemental semiconductors; enhancement‐mode; enhancement‐mode HEMT; FET logic inverters; frequency 5.0 MHz; gallium compounds; GaN‐Si; gate driver circuits; gate swing; HEMT integrated circuits; high‐temperature high‐frequency IC applications; III‐V semiconductors; integrated circuit applications; logic gates; logic‐high noise margin; logic‐low noise margin; monolithically integrated depletion‐mode; monolithically integrated HEMT; PCB; RC load; resistance 4.7 ohm; Semiconductor technology; silicon; size 6 inch; temperature 200.0 degC; temperature 293.0 K to 298.0 K; three‐stage direct‐coupled FET logic inverters; time 18 ns; time 22.0 ns; time 22 ns; time 40 ns; time 5 ns; turn on‐off propagation delay; voltage 1.55 V; voltage 2.18 V; voltage 3.84 V; voltage 4.0 V; wide band gap semiconductors
• ISSN: 0013-5194; 1350-911X; 1350-911X
• DOI: 10.1049/el.2020.1603

A GaN-based gate driver circuits have been successfully designed and fabricated using a commercially available 6-inch GaN-on-Si platform. The driver circuits consist of three-stage direct-coupled FET logic (DCFL) inverters featuring monolithically integrated depletion-mode (D-mode) and enhancement-mode (E-mode) high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). At room temperature (RT), at a supply voltage of 4 V the single-stage DCFL fabricated on the same die exhibits a large gate swing (3.84 V) and large noise margins (logic-low noise margin (NML) of 1.55 V and logic-high noise margin (NMH) of 2.18 V), both of which are desirable for all-GaN IC applications. Meanwhile, the gate driver circuits were characterised up to 200°C on a PCB with a capacitance load of 1 nF in series with 4.7 Ω resistance to resemble the load condition. At 200°C, the gate driver circuits function well even at 5 MHz operation frequency. The turn on/off propagation delay and rise/fall time of the gate driver circuits are 5/40 and 22/18 ns, respectively. As far as the authors’ knowledge, this is the highest reported operation frequency for GaN-based gate driver circuits under such high temperature, making it very promising for high-temperature high-frequency all-GaN integrated circuit (IC) applications.