Reliability issues in GaN and SiC power devices

GaN and SiC have been widely investigated for future power switching systems with high efficiencies. So far, prototypes of working transistors using these wide bandgap materials have demonstrated the superior performances suggesting the great potential. Remaining tasks for the commercialization include finding niche applications as entry ones with the well-established reliability. In this paper, recent progress of the GaN and SiC power devices developed at Panasonic is reviewed. After reviewing the reliability issues in the conventional transistors, normally-off GaN Gate Injection Transistors (GITs) and SiC Diode-integrated MOSFET (DioMOS) free from the degradations are presented. These state-of-the-art GaN and SiC devices are very promising for practical applications.