On the correlation between drain-gate breakdown voltage and hot-electron reliability in InP HEMT's

By comparing devices with different recess widths, we show that the off-state drain-gate breakdown voltage (BVDG) may give totally misleading indications on the reliability of lattice-matched InP HEMT's under hot-electron (HE) and impact ionization conditions, from both standpoints of gradual and catastrophic degradation. Since the hot-electron degradation effects observed in our HEMT's are quite common, we believe that our results should be considered as a general caveat whenever indications on HE HEMT robustness are inferred from BVDG measurements.