Gaudenzio Meneghesso

The need for sustainable energy sources has continuously increased over the years. Given the costs and issue related to energy storage and transfer, the only real “clean” energy is the saved energy, leading to a strong push for improvement in energy efficiency.

To this aim, a strong contribution can be provided by wide bandgap semiconductors. Thanks to their superior electronic properties, devices based on gallium nitride or silicon carbide can operate at higher frequencies compared to their silicon counterparts, leading to smaller passive elements, lower parasitics, and higher efficiency when used in a switching circuit. Moreover, their better robustness allows them to be safely used in high power applications, where low losses and efficiency are of the utmost importance.

Even though wide bandgap-based devices can already be found in the market, a few open issues still limit their penetration. The crystal structure in these semiconductors is far from ideal, and the insulator and interface quality in the corresponding material systems is inferior to silicon. This causes the presence of several defects in the lattice, which behave as charge trapping centers, leading to a worsening in the dynamic performance and parametric instability. Adequate measurement techniques have to be developed and implemented in order to study these effects and to identify the corresponding deep levels.

In gallium nitride devices, defects at the surface and in the passivation have an influence on the electrons flowing in the channel mobility, causing increased time-dependent losses during switching operation [1]. Moreover, the same effect can also be caused by the carbon acceptors placed in the buffer to compensate the intrinsic n-type conductivity of GaN [2]. These issues require additional improvements in device quality and a careful design of the use profile and switching locus in the final application.

Bulk silicon carbide quality is usually better compared to gallium nitride, but significant charge trapping can still take place in the gate insulator. This leads to threshold voltage instability when a positive or negative bias is applied to the gate, limiting the switching speed of the device [3]. Additionally, the charge state of defects located at the interface between the semiconductor and the insulator can be influenced by the applied bias, causing a lower channel mobility and reduced dynamic performance [4].

References

[1] N. Modolo et al., "Modeling Hot-Electron Trapping in GaN-based HEMTs", IRPS, 2022, pp. 10B.1-1.

[2] A. Nardo et al., “Positive and negative charge trapping GaN HEMTs: Interplay between thermal emission and transport-limited processes”, Microelectronics Reliability, Volume 126, 2021, 114255.

[3] F. Masin et al., "Non-monotonic threshold voltage variation in 4H-SiC metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor: Investigation and modeling", Journal of Applied Physics 130, 145702 (2021)

[4] F. Masin et al., "Analysis and Modeling of Vth Shift in 4H-SiC MOSFETs at Room and Cryogenic-Temperature," 2022 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS), 2022, pp. 5B.2-1.

Biography:

Gaudenzio Meneghesso (IEEE S’95–M’97–SM’07- F’13)

He graduated in Electronics Engineering at the University of Padova in 1992 working on the failure mechanism induced by hot-electrons in MESFETs and HEMTs. In 1997 he received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Padova working on hot-electron characterization, effects and reliability of GaAs-based and InP-based HEMT's and pseudomorphic HEMT's. Since 2011 is with University of Padova as Full Professor. He has been vice director of the Department of Information Engineering (DEI) of the University of Padova from October 2014 to September 2018, and he is now Director of DEI since October 2018.

His research interests are:

1. Power devices on wide bandgap semiconductors (GaN, SiC)
2. Microwave and optoelectronics devices on III-V and III-N;
3. RF-MEMS switches for reconfigurable antenna arrays;
4. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection structures;
5. photovoltaic solar cells based on various materials.

Within these activities, he published more than 800 technical papers (of which more than 100 Invited Papers and 14 best paper awards).

Bibliometric indexes (updated January 2022):

• Scopus: Documents: 692, Tot. Citations 11671, h-index: 51
• Google Scholar: Documents: 861, Tot. Citations 15771, h-index: 62

He has been the local coordinator of several research project (H2020, ENIAC, ECSEL, PRIN) and the Prime responsible of several research contract with industry and research institute. He has been the Project Coordinator of a European project H2020 – InRel-NPower (http://www.inrel-npower.eu/) H2020-NMBP-2016-2017, Grant Agreement number 720527.

 (IEDM): he was in the Quantum Electronics and Compound Semiconductors sub-committee as a member in 2003, 2017 and 2018 as chair in 2004, 2005 and 2019 while in 2006,2007, 2020 and 2021 he has been in the Executive Committee as European Arrangements Chair. Finally, he is the IEDM 2022 Tutorial Chair.

He served about 15 years for the IEEE International Reliability Physics (IRPS) Symposium (being General Chair of IEEE IRPS 2020, and Board of Directors Chair in IRPS2021). He also served several years (11) for the IEEE-International Electron Device Meeting. He has been the General Chairs of several other conferences and Workshops.

He has been Associate Editor of IEEE Electron Device Letters and of the IEEE Transaction on Electron Devices for the compound semiconductor devices area.

He has been nominated to IEEE Fellow class 2013, with the following citation: “for contributions to the reliability physics of compound semiconductors devices”.

More details can be found here: http://www.meneghesso.it

Email:

Address:1Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, Padova, Italy ,

Andrea Vecchiato

1. 1. The presentation will give an overview of the factors that are driving this revolution and how they impact the developments of electronics in the car.

Emphasis will be addressed to power management IC showing how Infineon interprets these new challenges.

(Optional: an overview of possible employment opportunities at Infineon Italy will be provided.)

Biography:

Andrea Vecchiato graduated in Physics from the University of Padova.

In Semiconductor Company since 1995, designer of several IC for biomedical, aerospace and telecom (xDSL) applications for Alcatel microelectronics and ST Microelectronics.

In 2005 he joined Infineon Technologies, as a concept engineer and design leader designing System Power Supply and standalone DCDC converter IC.

Since 2012 R&D teams manager in Infineon Padua design Center, focusing on the development of Power Supplies ICs for Functional Safety automotive applications.

Email:

Address:Infineon Italy, Padova,