Theoretical and Experimental Study of Subsurface Burnout and ESD in GaAs FETs AND HEMTs

The phenomena of subsurface burnout in GaAs FETs and HEMTS is explained in terms of the hot-electron distribution within the device induced by high-voltage pulses, high d.c. power and high dose of ionizing radiation. Our two-dimensional numerical results and all experimental evidence, including some recent experiments on electrostatic discharge (ESD) thresholds for GaAs FETs, supports a unified mechanism leading to subsurface burnout, under physically different adverse operating conditions. These results further suggest various ways to design burnout-hardened devices.