Prof. Dr. Hsin-Chu Chen

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Academic Career Length

34Years (1993-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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11 April 2025 in Nanoscale Advances

Journal Article

Advances in core technologies for semiconductor manufacturing: applications and challenges of atomic layer etching, neutral beam etching and atomic layer deposition

Tzu-Yi Lee

Pei-Tien Chen

Chien-Chi Huang

Hsin-Chu Chen

Li-Yin Chen

Hao-Chung Kuo

Revolutionizing semiconductor fabrication, ALD, ALE, and NBE deliver atomic-scale precision, driving unprecedented performance and scalability in next-generation miniaturized devices.

29 March 2023 in Micromachines

Journal Article

A Brief Overview of the Rapid Progress and Proposed Improvements in Gallium Nitride Epitaxy and Process for Third-Generation Semiconductors with Wide Bandgap

In this paper, we will discuss the rapid progress of third-generation semiconductors with wide bandgap, with a special focus on the gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon (Si). This architecture has high mass-production potential due to its low cost, larger size, and compatibility with CMOS-fab processes. As a result, several improvements have been proposed in terms of epitaxy structure and high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) process, particularly in the enhancement mode (E-mode). IMEC has made significant strides using a 200 mm 8-inch Qromis Substrate Technology (QST^®) substrate for breakdown voltage to achieve 650 V in 2020, which was further improved to 1200 V by superlattice and carbon-doped in 2022. In 2016, IMEC adopted VEECO metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) for GaN on Si HEMT epitaxy structure and the process by implementing a three-layer field plate to improve dynamic on-resistance (R_ON). In 2019, Panasonic HD-GITs plus field version was utilized to effectively improve dynamic R_ON. Both reliability and dynamic RON have been enhanced by these improvements.

11 August 2023 in Micromachines

Journal Article

Improving Performance and Breakdown Voltage in Normally-Off GaN Recessed Gate MIS-HEMTs Using Atomic Layer Etching and Gate Field Plate for High-Power Device Applications

A typical method for normally-off operation, the metal–insulator–semiconductor-high electron mobility transistor (MIS-HEMT) has been investigated. Among various approaches, gate recessed MIS-HEMT have demonstrated a high gate voltage sweep and low leakage current characteristics. Despite their high performance, obtaining low-damage techniques in gate recess processing has so far proven too challenging. In this letter, we demonstrate a high current density and high breakdown down voltage of a MIS-HEMT with a recessed gate by the low damage gate recessed etching of atomic layer etching (ALE) technology. After the remaining 3.7 nm of the AlGaN recessed gate was formed, the surface roughness (Ra of 0.40 nm) was almost the same as the surface without ALE (no etching) as measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Furthermore, the devices demonstrate state-of-the-art characteristics with a competitive maximum drain current of 608 mA/mm at a V_G of 6 V and a threshold voltage of +2.0 V. The devices also show an on/off current ratio of 10⁹ and an off-state hard breakdown voltage of 1190 V. The low damage of ALE technology was introduced into the MIS-HEMT with the recessed gate, which effectively reduced trapping states at the interface to obtain the low on-resistance (R_on) of 6.8 Ω·mm and high breakdown voltage performance.

12 April 2024 in Micromachines

Journal Article

Improvement Performance of p-GaN Gate High-Electron-Mobility Transistors with GaN/AlN/AlGaN Barrier Structure

This study demonstrates a particular composited barrier structure of high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) with an enhancement mode composed of p-GaN/GaN/AlN/AlGaN/GaN. The purpose of the composite barrier structure device is to increase the maximum drain current, reduce gate leakage, and achieve lower on-resistance (R_on) performance. A comparison was made between the conventional device without the composited barrier and the device with the composited barrier structure. The maximum drain current is significantly increased by 37%, and R_on is significantly reduced by 23%, highlighting the synergistic impact of the composite barrier structure on device performance improvement. This reason can be attributed to the undoped GaN (u-GaN) barrier layer beneath p-GaN, which was introduced to mitigate Mg diffusion in the capping layer, thus addressing its negative effects. Furthermore, the AlN barrier layer exhibits enhanced electrical properties, which can be attributed to the critical role of high-energy-gap properties that increase the 2DEG carrier density and block leakage pathways. These traps impact the device behavior mechanism, and the simulation for a more in-depth analysis of how the composited barrier structure brings improvement is introduced using Synopsys Sentaurus TCAD.

1 January 1993 in Semiconductor Science and Technology

Journal Article

Investigation of Sb/GaSb multilayer structures for potential application as an indirect narrow-bandgap material

T D Golding

J A Dura

Hui Wang

J T Zborowski

A Vigliante

Jerry R. Meyer

In this paper the authors provide the rationale, and a preliminary experimental investigation of, the Sb/GaSb system as a potential indirect narrow-gap superlattice, where spatial quantization effects are proposed to induce a positive valence-conduction band energy gap in the Sb semimetal layers. The experimental study has investigated growth of Sb/GaSb single heterojunctions and elementary multilayer structures using molecular beam epitaxy. Although Sb is rhombohedral and GaSb has the cubic zinc blende structure, the biatomic planar structure of Sb mimics the (111) plane in the zinc blende structure, and registry between the zinc blende and rhombohedral lattice can be preserved if epitaxy is achieved along the (111) direction. The authors show that high-quality Sb layers can be grown epitaxially on GaSb(111) homoepitaxial films, and that GaSb can be subsequently grown on Sb. The epilayer growth and heterojunction structure have been characterized by in situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Electrical properties of Sb epilayers with thicknesses in the range 150-2500 AA have been determined by temperature-dependent Hall measurements.

1 February 2025 in Materials Research Express

Journal Article

Characterization and simulation of AlGaN barrier structure effects in normally-off recessed gate AlGaN/GaN MISHEMTs

Po-Tsung Tu

Po-Chun Yeh

The objective of this study is to optimize the trade-off between threshold voltage (V_TH) and maximum drain current (I_D,max) in recessed gate AlGaN/GaN metal insulator semiconductor high electron mobility transistor (MISHEMT) using atomic layer etching (ALE) technology, with technical computer-aided design (TCAD) simulations assisting in the analysis of the underlying mechanisms to demonstrate the high performance and reliability of GaN-based power application. A normally-off recessed gate MISHEMT with varying AlGaN remaining thickness (2 nm, 3 nm, and 5 nm) was fabricated using the ALE process, ensuring precise etch depth and minimal surface damage. The device with a 5 nm AlGaN remaining thickness exhibited excellent performance, with an I_D,max current of 347 mA mm⁻¹, a V_TH of +2.6 V, and a breakdown voltage (BV) of 830 V, compared to the AlGaN barrier with remaining thicknesses of 3 nm and 2 nm, which only reached 120 V and 75 V, respectively. The different recessed gate AlGaN remaining electric field distribution results were verified according to TCAD simulations. This is attributed to the hot electrons effect under the action of the high electric field to promote electrons to overcome potential energy barriers that are injected into a buffer, barrier, or insulating layers and trapped there, degrading off-state BV capability.

About Me

Hsin Chu Chen received his Ph.D. from the Department of Photonics and the Institute of Electro-Optical Engineering of National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, in 2012. He studied the optical electric characteristics of quantum dots and then applied them to highly efficient hybrid photovoltaic devices and hybrid white-light-emitting diodes (WLEDs). He has published 19 SCI journal papers, 28 conference papers, the International SPIE Newsroom, and the International Nanotechnology News. He received the Outstanding Graduate Award from National Chiao Tung University. Then, he joined the Electronic and Optoelectronic System Laboratories (EOSL) of ITRI. He established an R2R pilot-scale line as a flexible OLED lighting module fabrication and successfully exhibited more than 300 pcs of flexible OLED lighting modules by the R2R process at the 12th Taiwan Solid State Lighting (2018 tSSL). Recently, he joined the Institute of Advanced Semiconductor Packaging and Testing, College of Semiconductor and Advanced Technology Research, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan, in 2023. He devotes himself to GaN-based electronics devices' processing development. He focuses on the key technology development of GaN-based electronics devices, including the functional substrate, the atomic layer of the etching and deposition process, and the Schottky gate and MIS-HEMTs structure.

Prof. Dr. Hsin-Chu Chen

Prof. Dr. Hsin-Chu Chen

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