High temperature operation of semiconductor devices is becoming increasingly important in both commercial and military applications. Specific commercial applications which require high temperature device operation are in aerospace (turbine engine controls), satellites, geothermal wells, wireless communications, and automobile engines. Additionally, as packing densities of semiconductor devices increase to improve processing speeds, heat generation and its dissipation becomes increasingly more important. Many future highly packed integrated circuits can be expected to operate at elevated temperatures. Though silicon remains the material of choice for most present semiconductor applications, it is unsuitable for high temperature operation because it becomes intrinsic whereby many of its important qualities no longer hold.
For these reasons, there is a serious need to develop new, wide bandgap semiconductor materials such as GaN, SiC, ZnS, and diamond to replace silicon in emerging applications.
