Application reliability validation of GaN power devices

Standard qualification methodology or “qual” does not specify product-level testing due to the diverse range of products and use conditions, a limited ability for system-level acceleration, and complication from system-level failures. This is a concern for emerging power-management technologies, since the fundamental switching transitions are not covered. We show that hard-switching with the well-known double-pulse tester is predictive of device performance under system-level testing. It simplifies the problem of product reliability testing to one of a device and a tester. It enables us to detect devices that pass qual but perform poorly in application. As a result, our devices pass qual and perform well in application.