SILICON CARBIDE (SiC) materials are currently metamorphosing from research and
development into a market driven manufacturing product [27]. SiC substrates are
currently used as the base for a large fraction of the world production of green, blue, and
ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Emerging markets for SiC homoepitaxy include
high-power switching devices [28,10,13] and microwave devices for S and X
band [16]. Applications for heteroepitaxial GaN-based structures on SiC substrates
include LEDs and microwave devices [29]. These exciting device results stem
primarily from the exploitation of the unique electrical and thermophysical properties offered
by SiC compared to Si and GaAs. Among these are: a large bandgap for high-temperature
operation and radiation resistance; high critical breakdown field for high-power output; high
saturated electron velocity for high-frequency operation; significantly higher thermal
conductivity for thermal management of high-power devices.
Subsections
T. Ayalew: SiC Semiconductor Devices Technology, Modeling, and Simulation
