EPC Releases Physics-Based Models That Project eGaN® Device Lifetime in New Reliability Report

EPC announces its Phase-12 Reliability Report, documenting the strategy used to achieve a remarkable field reliability record. eGaN devices have been in volume production for more than 11 years and have demonstrated very high reliability in over 226 billion hours of operation, most of which are in vehicles, LTE base stations, and satellites, to name just a few applications with rigorous operating conditions.

This report presents the results of testing eGaN devices to the point of failure, which provides the information to identify intrinsic failure mechanisms of the devices. By identifying these intrinsic failure mechanisms, deep knowledge of the behavior of a device over time, temperature, electrical or mechanical stress can be developed and used to create physics-based models that accurately project the safe operating life of a product over a more general set of operating conditions.

This report is divided into nine sections, each dealing with a different failure mechanism:

Section 1: Intrinsic failure mechanisms impacting the gate electrode of eGaN devices

Section 2: Intrinsic mechanisms underlying dynamic R_DS(on)

Section 3: Safe operating area (SOA)

Section 4: Testing devices to destruction under short-circuit conditions

Section 5: Custom test to assess reliability over long-term lidar pulse stress conditions

Section 6: Mechanical force stress testing

Section 7: Device solderability

Section 8: Thermo-mechanical stress

Section 9: Field reliability

According to Dr. Alex Lidow, CEO and co-founder of EPC, “The release of EPC’s 12^th reliability report represents the cumulative experience of millions of devices and five generations of technology. These reliability tests have been undertaken to continue our understanding of the behavior of GaN devices over a wide range of stress conditions.”

Dr. Lidow continues, “Standard power semiconductor qualification testing is inadequate since it only reports parts that pass a very specific test condition. By employing our test-to-fail methodology we have consistently produced more robust, higher performance, and lower cost products for power conversion applications, and have amassed a reliability track record beyond what is achievable with traditional silicon MOSFET technology.”

EPC will host a series of webinars highlighting the advances in modeling, predicting, and measuring reliability in GaN devices that contribute to the major findings of the Phase-12 Reliability Report. Visit the EPC website to register.

About EPC

EPC is the leader in enhancement mode gallium nitride-based power management devices and integrated circuits that provide even greater space, energy, and cost efficiency. EPC was the first to introduce enhancement-mode gallium-nitride-on-silicon (eGaN) FETs as power MOSFET replacements in applications such as DC-DC converters, wireless power transfer, envelope tracking, RF transmission, power inverters, remote sensing technology (Lidar), and Class-D audio amplifiers with device performance many times greater than the best silicon power MOSFETs.

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eGaN is a registered trademark of Efficient Power Conversion Corporation, Inc.

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