The effectiveness of heat extraction by the drain metal contact of β-Ga2O3 MOSFETs

• Published in: 2021 20th IEEE Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (iTherm) pp. 324 - 327
• Main Authors: Kim, Samuel H., Shoemaker, Daniel, Chatterjee, Bikramjit, Chabak, Kelson D., Green, Andrew J., Liddy, Kyle J., Jessen, Gregg H., Graham, Samuel, Choi, Sukwon
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.06.2021
• Subjects: Electro-thermal modeling; Electrodes; gallium oxide (Ga2O3); infrared thermal microscopy; Logic gates; MOSFET; Performance evaluation; Raman spectroscopy; self-heating; Silicon carbide; Thermal conductivity; thermal management; Thermal management of electronics
• ISSN: 2694-2135
• DOI: 10.1109/ITherm51669.2021.9503276

Beta-phase gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) has garnered considerable attention for power devices due to (i) its large critical electric field strength and (ii) the availability of low cost/high quality melt-grown substrates, both of which are advantages over silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). However, because of the low thermal conductivity of β-Ga2O3, thermal management strategies at the device-level are required to achieve high-power operation. In this work, electrically identical MOSFETs (fixed current channel length) with varying spacings between the gate electrode and drain metal contact (thus, thermally different) have been fabricated, to study the effectiveness of heat extraction by the drain metal electrode. Results show that the topside features of lateral β-Ga2O3 MOSFETs are important in both electrical and thermal design perspectives.