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Reliability issues of GaN HEMT: Current status and challenges
- 1 University of Science and Technology of China
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
With the development of power electronic devices, there is an increasing demand for energy-saving, emission reduction, and environmental protection. Thus, higher energy conversion efficiency of power electronic devices is required. While traditional Si-based power electronic devices have the disadvantage of low energy utilization efficiency and high thermal losses, GaN-based HEMT has significant advantages, making it a frontier and hotspot in global semiconductor research. However, the failure mechanisms that affect the reliability of GaN HEMTs are not completely comprehended. Many reliability issues affect devices’ performance, among which electrical reliability and thermal reliability are widely studied concerns. Electrical reliability issues contain inverse piezoelectric effect, hot electron effect, trapping effect, and mental instability. Thermal reliability issues contain self-heating effects, which are caused by the material’s unsatisfying thermal conductivity, and improper structure design. This paper is focused on the current research results of the GaN HEMT’s electrical reliability and thermal reliability. The first part of this paper gives a review of GaN HEMT reliability issues at their current status, and the second part outlines the challenges of GaN HEMTs in future development. This review will help researchers to better understand factors that affect GaN HEMT’s reliability and help with their device design for further research.
Keywords
gallium nitride, HEMTs, reliability, challenge
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Cite this article
Shu,T. (2023). Reliability issues of GaN HEMT: Current status and challenges. Applied and Computational Engineering,23,238-244.
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Volume title: Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Functional Materials and Civil Engineering
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