This work reports on a 600 V GaN-on-Si power transistor with monolithic integrated gate driver. The circuit is based on Schottky-gate depletion-mode technology and fabricated on a 2×3 mm² chip. The push-pull gate driver stage implements a quasi-normally-off pull-up transistor, fabricated with monolithic integrated series-connected Schottky diodes for positive voltage-level shifting in the source path of a d-mode HEMT. The measured gate-source threshold voltage of the fabricated quasi-normally-off pull-up transistor is +2.7 V as compared to -2.9 V of the normally-on pull-down transistor. Pulsed-IV measurements determine an effective gate driver resistance of around 2. On-wafer measurements of the power transistor show low off-state leakage-currents up to 600 V blocking voltage with high wafer yield and 150 m on-resistance. Finally, inductive-load switching measurements up to 450 V, 14.3 A show maximum switch node slew-rates during turn-on and turn-off transitions as high as 250 V/ns
This work presents a quasi-normally-off gallium nitride (GaN) transistor with positive gate threshold voltage based on depletion-mode technology, suitable for gate drivers or logic circuits. Quasi-normally-off behaviour is achieved by the series connection of multiple Schottky diodes in the source path of an initially normally-on transistor. As opposed to conventional approaches, a novel quasi-normally-off gate driver circuit avoids the static shoot-through current path in the driver final stage and ensures a safe blocking state of a d-mode power switch in case of driver failure with only one negative driver supply voltage. For evaluation a hybrid integrated GaN power module is built, comprising a 2.4 A gate driver and 600 V/ 24 A boost converter switching cell. Measurements of pulsed inductive switching up to 274 V/ 12 A show gate voltage rise and fall times of 5.4 ns and 3.8 ns, boost converter switch node transition times as low as 1.6 ns and 1.2 ns, and maximum slew-rates up to 91 V/ns during turn-on transitions, and up to 177 V/ns during turn-off transitions, respectively
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