Thermal Management of Gallium Nitride Electronics

Thermal Management of Gallium Nitride Electronics outlines the technical approaches undertaken by leaders in the community, the challenges they have faced, and the resulting advances in the field. This book serves as a one-stop reference for compound semiconductor device researchers tasked with solving this engineering challenge for future material systems based on ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors. A number of perspectives are included, such as the growth methods of nanocrystalline diamond, the materials integration of polycrystalline diamond through wafer bonding, and the new physics of thermal transport across heterogeneous interfaces.

Over the past 10 years, the book's authors have performed pioneering experiments in the integration of nanocrystalline diamond capping layers into the fabrication process of compound semiconductor devices. Significant research efforts of integrating diamond and GaN have been reported by a number of groups since then, thus resulting in active thermal management options that do not necessarily lead to performance derating to avoid self-heating during radio frequency or power switching operation of these devices. Self-heating refers to the increased channel temperature caused by increased energy transfer from electrons to the lattice at high power. This book chronicles those breakthroughs.

• Includes the fundamentals of thermal management of wide-bandgap semiconductors, with historical context, a review of common heating issues, thermal transport physics, and characterization methods
• Reviews the latest strategies to overcome heating issues through materials modeling, growth and device design strategies
• Touches on emerging, real-world applications for thermal management strategies in power electronics