A Simple Behavioral Electro-Thermal Model of GaN FETs for SPICE Circuit Simulation

This paper develops a behavioral electro-thermal model of GaN FETs for power-electronic circuit simulation in SPICE software environment. The model couples an available GaN FET electrical model with a thermal RC network for junction temperature estimation, while using modification circuits between an eGaN FET device and its gate driver to embed thermal impacts on the device performance. Both the static and switching characteristics of the developed model are compared with those from the original electrical model. Performance and functionality of the developed electro-thermal model in a boost converter, based on time-domain simulation studies in the SPICE environment, are evaluated and experimentally verified.