Experimental Demonstration of an Integrated Bidirectional Gate ESD Protection Structure for p-GaN Power HEMTs

This letter experimentally demonstrates an integrated bidirectional protection structure to improve the p-GaN power HEMTs’ gate ESD reliability. The protection structure comprises an event-triggering p-GaN HEMT, a low-side resistor${R}_{\text {L}}$, and a high-side resistor${R}_{\text {H}}$. The critical parameters such as transmission line pulsing (TLP) failure current, trigger voltage${V}_{\text {Trig}}$and leakage current${I}_{\text {leak}}$are evaluated by TLP testing. It is validated that this protection structure can sustain a forward TLP failure current up to 1.42 A (equivalent human body model passing voltage${V}_{\text {HBM}} \approx {2.13}$kV) and a reverse TLP failure current up to 3.06 A (${V}_{\text {HBM}} \approx {4.59}$kV) without sacrificing the protected device’s performance. In addition, it is verified that the TLP failure current can be adjusted by the event-triggering p-GaN HEMT’s active area and${R}_{\text {H}}/{R}_{\text {L}}$ratio.