EPC releases Phase-15 Reliability Report

Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA – which makes enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) and integrated circuits for power management applications – has issued its Phase-15 Reliability Report, documenting continued work using test-to-fail methodology and adding specific reliability metrics and predictions for real-world applications including solar optimizers, light detection & ranging LiDAR) sensors, and DC–DC converters.

The 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, physics-based models that accurately project the safe operating life of a product over a more general set of operating conditions are developed. This is applied to information from real-world experience to determine mission robustness for specific applications.

The report is divided into nine sections, each dealing with a different failure mechanism or application case:

Section 1: Voltage/temperature stress on the gate;
Section 2: Voltage/temperature stress on the drain;
Section 3: Safe operating area (SOA);
Section 4: Short-circuit robustness testing;
Section 5: Mechanical force stress testing;
Section 6: Thermo-mechanical stress;
Section 7: Reliability test results for long-term LiDAR pulse stress conditions;
Section 8: Using test-to-fail methodology to accurately predict how eGaN devices can last more than 25 years in solar applications;
Section 9: Applying the physics-based model to real-world DC–DC converter use cases.

“The release of EPC’s Phase-15 reliability report examines information from real-world experience that either confirms the laboratory-derived data or opens new questions about mission robustness that leads to a deeper understanding of the behavior of GaN devices over a wide range of stress conditions,” notes CEO & co-founder Dr Alex Lidow.