Thermal analysis of power GaAs MESFETs

The paper presents a technique for the self-consistent simulation of power GaAs MESFETs accounting for Joule heating within the active region. The presence of dissipators is included through equivalent boundary conditions, thereby allowing the coupled electro-thermal simulation to be performed on a small portion of the device only. The approach is validated by comparison with large-scale thermal simulation. Results are presented on the effect of device heating on DC characteristics, and temperature distributions are discussed for devices with realistic mountings.