Investigation on the Thermal Characteristics of Enhancement-Mode p-GaN HEMT Device on Si Substrate Using Thermoreflectance Microscopy

In this paper, thermoreflectance microscopy was used to measure the high spatial resolution temperature distribution of the p-GaN HEMT under high power density. The maximum temperature along the GaN channel was located at the drain-side gate edge region. It was found that the thermal resistance (R_th) of the p-GaN HEMT device increased with the increase of channel temperature. The R_th dependence on the temperature was well approximated by a function of R_th~T^a (a = 0.2). The three phonon Umklapp scattering, point mass defects and dislocations scattering mechanisms are suggested contributors to the heat transfer process for the p-GaN HEMT. The impact of bias conditions and gate length on the thermal characteristics of the device was investigated. The behaviour of temperature increasing in the time domain with 50 µs pulse width and different drain bias voltage was analysed. Finally, a field plate structure was demonstrated for improving the device thermal performance.