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-sta te drain-gate breakdown voltage (BVDG) may give totally misleading indicati ons on the reliability of lattice-matched InP HEMT's under hot-electron (HE ) and impact ionization conditions, from both standpoints of gradual and ca tastrophic degradation. Since the hot-electron degradation effects observed in our HEMT's are quite common, we believe that our results should be cons idered as a general caveat whenever indications on HE HEMT robustness are i nferred from BVDG measurements.