A novel 4H–SiC MESFET with clival gate

•A novel 4H–SiC MESFET structure with clival gate (CG-MESFET) is proposed.•We compared the DC performances of the CG-MESFET and the DR-MESFET.•The drain current of the CG-MESFET transforms with the change of EPCG.•The drain current reaches to a maximum value when EPCG is at 1/2 of whole gate.•Compared with the DR-MESFET, the CG-MESFET has a high breakdown voltage.

In this paper, a novel 4H–SiC metal semiconductor field effect transistor (MESFET) with a clival gate structure (CG-MESFET) is proposed. The drain current (ID) and the breakdown voltage (VB) are simulated and compared to the traditional double-recessed gate 4H–SiC MESFET (DR-MESFET). The results indicate that the drain current (ID) of the CG-MESFET transforms with the change of end point of clival gate (EPCG), and it reaches to a maximum value about 545 mA when EPCG is at 1/2 of whole gate, thus, the drain current (ID) has a much greater increase than that of the DR-MESFET. The CG-MESFET has the advantages of high breakdown voltage (VB) that is increased by 15% and superior DC performances over the DR-MESFET.