| Reliability evaluation and failure analysis play an important part in the development and application of electronic and optoelectronic devices. The reliability issues are also directly related to the specific material properties. III-Nitride based electronic conventional and metal-oxide-semiconductor heterostructure field effect transistors and optoelectronic light-emitting diodes devices promise exceptionally good reliability parameters. This good reliability is due to the chemical inertness of nitrides, very high growth and fabrication temperatures, and record high breakdown fields. Due to the novelty of these devices, very few data are available concerning their reliability.; This dissertation aimed, for the first time, to give a methodical and systematical reliability evaluation of both electronic and optoelectronic devices, performed on the III-Nitride based devices.; To accomplish this research field, the reliability measurement setup was first designed and assembled separately for electronic and optical devices. Then, the major parameters were selected according to the device basic applications. Strong correlation was found between the DC parameters of the devices and their RF and optical output characteristics. Therefore, the DC parameters' stability was systematically tested in a wide range of time periods and temperatures.; In general, three basic stages of the device operation were discovered, namely initial stabilization, normal or constant device operation, and age-related wearout. The physical mechanisms responsible for each stage are discussed including material issues, processing details and specific device design contributions. As a result, the understanding of all corresponding instability mechanisms will help us in future in improving significantly the final product stability and yield.; Evaluated numerical measures of the parameter stability and the approach for lifetime estimation are the first on GaN based electronic and optoelectronic devices. The results open the important investigation for future works. |
