Large Signal Performance of the Gallium Nitride Heterostructure Field-Effect Transistor With a Graphene Heat-Removal System

Abstract

The self-heating effect exerts a considerable influence on the characteristics of high-power electronic and optoelectronic devices based on gallium nitride. An extremely non-uniform distribution of the dissipated power and a rise in the average temperature in the gallium nitride heterostructure field-effect transistor lead to the formation of a hot spot near the conductive channel and result in the degradation of the drain current, power gain and device reliability. The purpose of this work is to design a gallium nitride heterostructure field-effect transistor with an effective graphene heat-removal system and to study using numerical simulation the thermal phenomena specific to it. The object of the research is the device structure formed on sapphire with a grapheme heat-spreading element placed on its top surface and a trench in the passivation layer filled with diamond grown by chemical vapor deposition. The subject of the research is the large signal performance quantities. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the heat-removal system integrated into the heterostructure field-effect transistor and leading to the suppression of the self-heating effect and to the improvement of the device performance. The advantage of our concept is that the heat-spreading element is structurally connected with a heat sink and is designed to remove the heat immediately from the maximum temperature area through the trench in which a high thermal conductivity material is deposited. The results of this work can be used by the electronics industry of the Republic of Belarus for developing the hardware components of gallium nitride power electronics.

Keywords

• diamond
• gallium nitride
• graphene
• heat-removal system
• heterostructure field-effect transistor
• large signal performance
• power electronics
• thermal conductivity