Thermal management and packaging of wide and ultra-wide bandgap power devices: a review and perspective

Abstract

Power semiconductor device is a fundamental driver for advancement in power electronics, the technology for electric energy conversion. Power devices based on wide-bandgap (WBG) and ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) semiconductors allow for smaller chip size, lower loss and higher frequency as compared to the silicon (Si) counterpart, thus enabling a higher system efficiency and smaller form factor. Amongst the challenges for the development and deployment of WBG and UWBG devices is the efficient dissipation of heat, an unavoidable by-product of the higher power density. To mitigate the performance limitations and reliability issues caused by self-heating, thermal management is required at both device and package levels. Particularly, packaging is a crucial milestone for the development of any power device technology; WBG and UWBG devices have both reached this milestone recently. This paper provides a timely review on the thermal management of WBG and UWBG power devices with an emphasis on the packaged devices. Additionally, emerging UWBG devices hold good promise for high-temperature applications due to the low intrinsic carrier density and the increased dopant ionization at elevated temperatures. The fulfillment of this promise in system applications, in conjunction with overcoming the thermal limitations of some UWBG materials, require new thermal management and packaging technologies. To this end, we provide perspectives on the relevant challenges, potential solutions and research opportunities, highlighting the pressing needs for the device-package, electro-thermal co-design and the high-temperature packages that can withstand the high electric field expected in UWBG devices.

Recent progress of Ga2O3 power technology: large-area devices, packaging and applications

“…60) At the packaging level, junction-and double-side heat extraction with advanced cooling are essential for Ga 2 O 3 devices. 63,64) Regardless of these thermal management approaches, their effectiveness has to be evaluated in packaged, large-area power devices as characterized by indispensable datasheet parameters such as the junction-to-case thermal resistance (R θJC ).…”

“…The package-level and dielevel thermal management need to be co-designed and cooptimized for Ga 2 O 3 power devices. 63) A challenge for the package-die thermal co-design is the lack of a modeling framework that interfaces the packageand device-level simulations. 63) Typical package-level finite element analysis (FEA) simulations assume a uniform power dissipation over the device junction neglecting the electrothermal effects (e.g.…”

Stability, Reliability, and Robustness of GaN Power Devices: A Review

“…The reliability issues associated with the package of GaN devices is strengthened by the diverse packages required to accommodate various chip footprints [244]. Si devices manufactured by different vendors now have standard footprint for the user to pick up from.…”

“…High temperature performance and reliability of GaN HEMTs, particularly industrial devices, have only recently been investigated due to the challenges in developing hightemperature packages [244]. An initial study of experimental non-recessed GaN GITs was performed in [291] up to 420 o C for four different buffer designs.…”

“…A high temperature robustness test in nitrogen gas of SP-HEMTs in [292] found that V TH remained stable over 20 days of exposure, while R DS,ON and saturation current were found to degrade depending upon the presence of bonding pads, indicating the determining role of packaging in device reliability at high temperature extremes. A recent review paper has discussed in detail the power device packaging for high-temperature applications [244].…”