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GaN Power Device Characterization Study

Independent study: Thermal Modeling of InGaN/GaN HEMTs

Project Overview

Independent study of thermal modeling for InGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs). The project reviews the published thermal-polarization modeling literature (NASA HEMT, Talukder et al, Venishkumar & Balamurugan) and reproduces the canonical results in MATLAB, Sentaurus TCAD, and Python.

All quantitative values reported on this page are reproductions of, or numerical comparisons against, results published in the cited references. They are not original experimental measurements.

Scope of the Study

  • 3D thermal modeling and heat dissipation analysis
  • Temperature-dependent material properties
  • Electro-thermal coupling simulations
  • Multi-physics treatment including piezoelectric effects
  • Reproduction of published results across MATLAB, Sentaurus TCAD, and Python

Technical Implementation

MATLAB

Thermal-modeling reproductions and visualization in MATLAB.

View MATLAB Implementation

Sentaurus TCAD

Device-level reproductions of the cited HEMT structure in Synopsys Sentaurus TCAD.

View TCAD Simulations

Python

Companion Python notebooks for thermal post-processing and visualization.

View Python Demos

Reference Values from the Literature

The following parameter ranges and device structure are from the cited references. They are reproduced here as the reference points used in the study, not as original experimental measurements.

Thermal Performance (Reproduced from Literature)

  • Reported junction temperatures around the 100 to 130 °C range at low-watt power dissipation in the cited InGaN/GaN HEMT geometry
  • Thermal resistance values around the tens-of-K/W range on SiC substrates
  • Field-plate designs reported as a temperature-reduction strategy in the literature

Reference Device Structure (from cited papers)

  • In0.17Al0.83N barrier layer (15 nm)
  • GaN channel (300 nm)
  • SiC substrate for heat dissipation

Reference Reading

Talukder et al. — Comprehensive Review of GaN HEMTs (ScienceDirect) Venishkumar & Balamurugan — TCAD Simulation of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs (IJAER, 2015)

Works Cited

  1. NASA Ames Research Center. “High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) Technology for Space Applications.” NASA Technical Reports Server, 2023.
  2. Talukder, A., Ifty, M.R., Fahad, A.A. “Comprehensive review of GaN HEMTs: Architectures, recent developments, reliability concerns, challenges, and multifaceted applications.” e-Prime — Advances in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Energy, 2025. ScienceDirect
  3. Venishkumar, T., Balamurugan, N.B. “TCAD Simulation Study of AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMT).” International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, vol. 10, no. 11, 2015. Publisher PDF