Reliability Evaluation of High Power AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on SiC Substrate

Abstract

Undoped AlGaN/GaN HEMTs grown on SiC substrates have recently demonstrated record output power density of 10.7 W/mm (cw) and total output power of 10 W at 10 GHz (L. F. Eastman, Joint ONR/MURI Review (5/15–16, 2001), CA (USA) [1]). In this paper, we present the results of reliability tests performed on undoped AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on SiC under dc and rf stress conditions. Undoped AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on SiC substrates have been submitted to on-wafer dc and rf stress conditions at a room temperature and the degradation in device performance induced by hot electron and thermal effects have been observed.