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Thermal impedance evaluation of optimized PCB-based GaN HEMT Single-ChipPrepackage using VGS Method
(2022)
This study evaluates the measurement of the thermal resistance and impedance of GaN HEMTs packages with gatesource voltage (VGS) for junction temperature measurement. First, calibration measurement of VGS vs temperature is performed in an oven. Large deviations from chip to chip require that each device is calibrated separately. Zth is measured for an experimental single-chip prepackage (SCP), developed in our lab, and a commercial reference package (GaNpx). The measured junction to ambient thermal resistance of the SCP is 35% lower compared to the reference. This is caused by a copper heat spreader integrated in the package. The thermal resistance of multiple packages attached on one PCB is also performed. This measurement indicates a maximum difference of 35%. This difference remained the same in several experiments with two thermal interface materials and pressure levels.
Gallium nitride transistors have a smaller die area compared to silicon-based devices, which can lead to thermal challenges in high current density applications. Therefore, thermally optimized packages with a high heat spreading capability in combination with small parasitic are necessary. This work investigates the thermal performance a 7 mΩ, 100 V GaN HEMT in a thermally optimized single chip package with integrated RTD and compares it to the commercial counterpart. The thermal optimized package shows a significantly better transient thermal impedance resulting in a static thermal resistance of 3.1 K/W, which is a 20 % reduction in comparison to the COTS package. The integrated RTD trace has a relative reaction time of 590 ms, which is 30-fold slower in comparison to the junction temperature. To show the identical electrical behavior, although the single chip package is larger, it is compared with the commercial off-the-shelf package and a 5 mΩ, 100 V GaN single chip package in a 300 kHz, 48 V buck converter. Both 7 mΩ versions have identical efficiencies of ≈97.5 % up to 50 A output current, slightly outperforming the 5 mΩ GaN transistor. With its combination of improved thermal characteristics and lowinductance, the thermally optimized package of the GaN device offers more degrees of freedom in the design of power converter to exploit trade-offs between longer lifetime, higher temperature operation and power density. Index Terms—gallium nitride, high electron mobility transistor, (thermal) performance evaluation, thermally optimized package, DC/DC converter, high current application, parallelization
In this work an approach for a direct experimental comparison of the application-oriented performance between two high current GaN DC/DC converters based on 7mΩ, 100V GaN HEMTs in a commercial off-the-shelf top-cooled package and 5mΩ, 100V GaN HEMTs embedded in a thermally-optimized single-chip package is given. The two packaging versions are compared by a maximally identical implementation of the power and gate loops in a 48V, 300kHz buck converter with two parallel GaN HEMTs. In the single-chip package the die is directly mounted on a 12×6mm 2 copper-heat spreader offering a significantly lower thermal resistance to heatsink (1.69KW −1 ) in comparison to the commercial off-the-shelf version (2.45KW −1 ). For a direct benchmark, the COTS-based converter has an identical power-loop to the SCP-version with a novel gate-drive concept. Both versions have an efficiency of 96.8% at 65A output current (output power: 1.5kW), while the commercial off-the-shelf version has a better efficiency for lower currents, due to its better hard-switching Figure-of-Merits and therefore lower switching losses and reaches an output current of up to 80A (output power: 1.75kW). A detailed analytical loss breakdown for the different transistors in dependence of the temperature and output current is given to proof the measured current point, where the efficiencies of both converters are identical, since the higher switching losses of the SCP version are compensated by lower conduction losses at higher currents and temperatures compared to the smaller COTS transistor. Finally, an outlook on further improvements for reaching higher output currents and potential converters for a more fair comparison of different thermally optimized SMD packages are given.