Method for Suppressing Trap-Related Memory Effects in IV Characterizations of GaN HEMTs

A method to suppress trapping-related effects when performing IV characterizations of field effect transistors is presented. Standard IV measurements usually utilize voltage sweeps with fixed start, stop, and step values. At high electric fields in these sweeps, the charging of electron traps with long time constants may occur. The trapped electrons cause different memory effects such as hysteresis and the kink effect. The proposed method suppresses these effects, by reordering the bias points, so to prevent charging due to high preceding electric fields. The method provides more rudimentary IV measurements, useful for e.g. technology evaluation and modeling purposes.