Analysis of Lateral Thermal Coupling for GaN MMIC Technologies

Journal article, 2018

This paper presents a study of the lateral heat propagation in an aluminum gallium nitride/gallium nitride (AlGaN/GaN) heterostructure grown on a silicon carbide substrate. The study is enabled by the design of a temperature sensor that utilizes the temperature-dependent I-V characteristic of a semiconductor resistor, making it suitable for integration in GaN monolithic microwave integrated circuit technologies. Using the sensor, we are able to characterize the thermal transient response and extract lateral thermal time constants from the measurements. Time constants in the range from 25 mu s to 1.2 ms are identified. Furthermore, the heat propagation properties are characterized for heat source-to-sensor distances of 86-484 mu m, resulting in delay times from 3.5 to 111 mu s. It is shown that both the time constants and propagation delay increase with temperature. An empirical model of the sensor current versus temperature and voltage is proposed and used to predict the junction temperature of the sensor. The study provides knowledge for heat management design and proposes an integrated temperature measurement solution for future highly integrated GaN applications.