A Comparison of AlGaN/GaN HFETs on Si Substrates in Ceramic Air Cavity and Plastic Overmold Packages

Author

Therrien, R. ; Chaudhari, A. ; Singhal, S. ; Snow, C. ; Edwards, A. ; Park, C. ; Nagy, W. ; Johnson, J.W. ; Hanson, A.W. ; Linthicum, K.J. ; Kizilyalli, I.C.

Author_Institution

Nitronex Corp., Durham

fYear

2007

fDate

3-8 June 2007

Firstpage

635

Lastpage

638

Abstract

AlGaN/GaN HFETs on Si substrates have been assembled in ceramic air cavity and plastic overmold packages. Thermal, DC, small and large signal RF and reliability characterization have been performed on both types of devices. Thermal characterization shows that the thermal resistance of the plastic overmolded parts is higher resulting in higher operating temperatures. The higher operating temperature causes parameters such as the peak CW power to be lower than that seen in the ceramic air cavity package. The advantage of the plastic packaging resides in its >10x lower package assembly cost.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; ceramic packaging; gallium compounds; high electron mobility transistors; plastic packaging; semiconductor device packaging; semiconductor device reliability; silicon; AlGaN-GaN; HFET; Si; ceramic air cavity packages; high electron mobility transistors; plastic overmold packages; plastic packaging; reliability characterization; silicon substrates; thermal characterization; thermal resistance; Aluminum gallium nitride; Assembly; Ceramics; Gallium nitride; HEMTs; MODFETs; Plastic packaging; RF signals; Temperature; Thermal resistance; AlGaN/GaN HFETs; GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs); RF power transistors; linearity;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium, 2007. IEEE/MTT-S International

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0688-9

Electronic_ISBN

0149-645X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2007.379981

Filename

4263896