Electro-thermal co-design of β -(AlxGa1-x)2O3/Ga2O3 modulation doped field effect transistors

Abstract

Ultra-wide bandgap β-gallium oxide (Ga2O3) devices are of considerable interest with potential applications in both power electronics and radio frequency devices. However, current Ga2O3 device technologies are limited by the material's low intrinsic electron mobility and thermal conductivity. The former problem can be addressed by employing modulation-doped β-(AlxGa1−x)2O3/Ga2O3 heterostructures in the device architecture. In this work, (AlxGa1−x)2O3/Ga2O3 modulation-doped field effect transistors (MODFETs) have been investigated from a thermal perspective. Thermoreflectance thermal imaging was used to characterize the self-heating of the MODFETs. The (Al0.18Ga0.82)2O3 thermal conductivity (3.1–3.6 W/mK) was determined using a frequency domain thermoreflectance technique. Electro-thermal modeling was used to discern the effect of design parameters such as substrate orientation and channel length on the device self-heating behavior. Various thermal management schemes were evaluated using the electro-thermal device model. From an electro-thermal co-design perspective, the improvement in electrical performance followed by the mitigation of self-heating was also studied. For example, by employing a Ga2O3-on-SiC composite wafer, which was fabricated in this work, a 50% increase in power handling capability can be achieved as compared to a homoepitaxial device. Furthermore, flip-chip heterointegration and double-sided cooling approaches can lead to more than 2× improvement in the power handling capability. Using an augmented double-sided cooling design that includes nanocrystalline diamond passivation, a 5× improvement in the power handling capability can be accomplished, indicating the potential of the technology upon implementation of a suitable thermal management scheme.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Oct 12, 2020
Source ID
10.1063/5.0021275

Entities

People

  • Aman Haque
  • Bikramjit Chatterjee
  • Craig D. McGray
  • Jacob Leach
  • James S Lundh
  • Praneeth Ranga
  • Siddharth Rajan
  • Sriram Krishnamoorthy
  • Sukwon Choi
  • Yiwen Song
  • Yuewei Zhang
  • Zahabul Islam
  • Zhanbo Xia

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • National Science Foundation
  • Ohio State University
  • Pennsylvania State University
  • University of Utah

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Materials science

Readers

  • Integrated Circuit Design and Technology.
  • Semiconductor Device Technology
  • Thermal Physics or Thermal Science.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Microelectromechanical Systems