Reducing Thermal Resistance of AlGaN/GaN Electronic Devices Using Novel Nucleation Layers

Author

Riedel, Gernot J. ; Pomeroy, James W. ; Hilton, Keith P. ; Maclean, Jessica O. ; Wallis, David J. ; Uren, Michael J. ; Martin, Trevor ; Forsberg, Urban ; Lundskog, Anders ; Kakanakova-Georgieva, Anelia ; Pozina, Galia ; Janzen, E. ; Lossy, Richard ; Pazir

Author_Institution

Phys. Lab., Univ. of Bristol, Bristol

Volume

30

Issue

2

fYear

2009

Firstpage

103

Lastpage

106

Abstract

Currently, up to 50% of the channel temperature in AlGaN/GaN electronic devices is due to the thermal-boundary resistance (TBR) associated with the nucleation layer (NL) needed between GaN and SiC substrates for high-quality heteroepitaxy. Using 3-D time-resolved Raman thermography, it is shown that modifying the NL used for GaN on SiC epitaxy from the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD)-grown standard AlN-NL to a hot-wall MOCVD-grown AlN-NL reduces NL TBR by 25%, resulting in ~10% reduction of the operating temperature of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. Considering the exponential relationship between device lifetime and temperature, lower TBR NLs open new opportunities for improving the reliability of AlGaN/GaN devices.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; MOCVD; Raman spectra; aluminium compounds; circuit reliability; gallium compounds; high electron mobility transistors; semiconductor epitaxial layers; semiconductor growth; silicon compounds; thermal resistance; time resolved spectra; wide band gap semiconductors; 3-D time-resolved Raman thermography; AlGaN-GaN; HEMTs; SiC; device lifetime; device temperature; electronic devices; high-quality heteroepitaxy; hot-wall MOCVD-growth; metal-organic chemical vapor deposition; nucleation layers; reliability; thermal-boundary resistance; CVD; FETs; MODFETs; epitaxial layers; gallium compounds; resistance heating;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2008.2010340

Filename

4729630