Thermal Analysis of AlGaN/GaN High-Electron-Mobility Transistors with Graphene

Journal article, 2018

A thermal analysis of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with Graphene is investigated using Silvaco and Finite Element Method. Two thermal management solutions are adopted; first of all, graphene is used as dissipation material between SiC substrate and GaN buffer layer to reduce thermal boundary resistance of the device. At the same time, graphene is also used as a thermal spread material on the top of the source contacts to reduce thermal resistance of the device. The thermal analysis results show that the temperature rise of device adopting graphene decreases by 46.5% in transistors operating at 13.86 W/mm. Meanwhile, the thermal resistance of GaN HEMTs with graphene is 6.8 K/W, which is much lower than the device without graphene, which is 18.5 K/W. The thermal management solutions are useful for integration of large-scale graphene into practical devices for effective heat spreading in AlGaN/GaN HEMT.