PhD

Process Technology

• Ge and III-V CMOS scaling
• Post-CMOS nano
• Reliability research at imec
• Memories
• Power devices
• GaN Power Converters
• Nanoscale properties of new materials for emerging memory de
• Ion-solid interactions
• Probing semiconductor devices on the atomic scale
• Packaging and interconnection
• SiGe-based MEMS
• RF-MEMS
• Advanced lithography
• Simulation of wafer plating uniformity
• Superfilling of 3D via structures with alternative metals
• Diamond bit cutting for metal bonding

GaN Power Converters

Gallium Nitride (GaN) and its related alloys (AlN and InN) are without any doubt one of the most challenging semiconductors today, with applications e.g. in opto-electronics and high power electronics. Due to its wide bandgap of up to 6.2eV, InAlGaN technology can break through the frontiers of Si technology.

Whereas the focus for III-nitrides electronic devices has been so far directed towards high frequency applications, typically for telecommunication, the high voltage capability (because the critical breakdown field is 10 times larger than in Si), combined to low conduction and switching loss is considered of highest importance for the development of a new generation of Switch Mode Power Supplies. Power converters are used in a broad range of applications, including computer (laptops), consumers, renewable energies or industrial applications. The use of the GaN technology, in replacement of Si technology, offers the possibility of increasing the overall converter efficiency by reduction of both the conduction and switching loss. Moreover, it allows increasing the operating frequency and thus reducing the size of the passives and simplifying the converter design as well as significantly reducing the thermal constraints on the system.

The PhD research will aim at exploring the complete benefits/limits offered by the integration of GaN HEMT and diode technology in power converter systems as well as the possibilities of new applications, by examining in particular the new design possibilities offered by the relaxed system constraints, and at designing, realizing and testing demonstrator SMPS.

Responsible scientists:Marianne Germain, Staf Borghs