Development of gallium nitride power transistors

Abstract

GaN-based high-voltage transistors have outstanding properties for the development of ultra-high efficiency and compact power electronics. This thesis describes a new process technology for the fabrication of GaN power devices optimized for their use in efficient power distribution systems in computer micro-processors. An existing process flow was used to fabricate the baseline single-finger transistors and additional process steps were developed and optimized to fabricate multi-finger devices with total gate widths up to 12mm. These transistors offer the current and on-resistance levels required by future GaN-based power converters. Transistors with various gate widths were fabricated and characterized by DC and capacitancevoltage measurements to study how the main transistor metrics scale with gate width.