Reliability data's of 0.5 μm AlGaN/GaN on SiC technology qualification

UMS have fully qualified the first AlGAN/GaN on SiC HFET technology in Europe for high RF power applications up to C band. Reliability results presented in this paper demonstrate GH50-10 technology reached a high level of maturity. The qualification procedure includes environmental test, end of life characterisation, definition of the DC and RF Safe Operating Area and a preliminary evaluation of the failure rate. From storage test, a failure mechanism related to the increase of the gate leakage current has been characterised with an activation energy of 2.1 eV. While the manufacturing process has been optimised to prevent the inverse piezoelectric effect, a runaway phenomenon of the drain current was identified to be the wear out mechanism. The activation energy of 1.82 eV leads to a T50 above 3 × 107 h at 175 °C. Robustness test up to a VSWR of |10| were performed. A failure rate of 57 FIT is extracted at 175 °C from more than 200 000 cumulated component hours over 70 devices.