Correlation between Pulse I-V and Human Body Model (HBM) Tests for Drain Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) Robustness Evaluation of GaN Power HEMTs

The drain-to-source HBM (human body model) ESD (electrostatic discharge) robustness of GaN HEMTs has been investigated through the TLP (transmission line pulse) I-V tests in most previous works. However, TLP tests and HBM ESD tests are found to be miscorrelated using the conventional method applicable to Si MOSFETs. In this work, it is found that the drain-to-source breakdown mechanism of GaN HEMTs contradicts the basis of the conventional correlation method, which also leads to much longer rise time of the drain-to-source voltage (V
ds
) in the HBM ESD test than in the TLP test. Therefore, the HBM ESD test of GaN HEMTs is correlated with a pulse I-V (PIV) test with easily adjustable rise time to establish a more suitable method. The HBM ESD sensitivity is estimated from the PIV test with an error of 4.5%.