GaAs FET failure mechanisms due to high humidity and ionic contamination
Abstract
Various types of GaAs FET structures have been tested under temperature cycling from -10 to 100 C at 95% RH in the presence of ionic contamination, with and without bias. Devices which exhibited excessive leakage currents were failure analyzed and the results correlated with the electrical degradation. It is found that Al-gate FETs in both hermetic and nonhermetic configurations typically fail by a gate-source short. The failure mechanisms were Al corrosion, metallic ion migration via electrolytic paths, and Au-Al phase formation. Devices with Au/refractory gates are found to be less susceptible to failure in hostile environment; even in nonhermetic configuration, these devices did not exhibit catastrophic gate shortening.
- Publication:
-
IEEE Transactions on Reliability
- Pub Date:
- August 1980
- Bibcode:
- 1980ITR....29..222A
- Keywords:
-
- Electronic Equipment Tests;
- Failure Modes;
- Field Effect Transistors;
- Gallium Arsenides;
- Humidity;
- Ion Irradiation;
- Environmental Tests;
- Gates (Circuits);
- Thermal Cycling Tests;
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering