Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA, which makes enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) for power management applications, has announced its Phase Seven Reliability Report, showing the distribution of over 17 billion accumulated field-device hours and detailing test data from more than 7 million equivalent device-hours under stress.
The stress tests included intermittent operating life (IOL), early life failure rate (ELFR), humidity with bias, temperature cycling, and electrostatic discharge. The study reports a composite 0.24 FIT rate for products in the field, which is consistent with all of EPC's in situ evaluations to date and validates the readiness of eGaN FETs to supplant silicon for commercial power switching applications, reckons the firm.
"Demonstration of the reliability of new technology is a major challenge," says CEO & co-founder Dr Alex Lidow. "The results of this study show that EPC gallium nitride products have the requisite reliability to displace silicon as the technology of choice for semiconductors."
For this report, EPC's eGaN FETs were subjected to a wide variety of stress tests under conditions that are typical for silicon-based power MOSFETs. The eGaN FETs were stressed to meet the latest JEDEC standards, when possible. The tests included: high-temperature reverse bias (HTRB), high-temperature gate bias (HTGB), temperature cycling (TC), high-temperature high-humidity bias (H3TRB), early life failure rate (ELFR) HTRB, and intermittent operating life (IOL).
EPC says that its extensive reliability testing continues to show that the devices are both intrinsically and environmentally reliable. All seven phases of the reliability test program are available at EPC's web-site.
