Theoretical description with a potential is made for inhomogeneous structures of high field domain and current filament in semiconductors with a negative differential conductivity (NDC) appearing under voltage- and current-controlled conditions, respectively. The potential proposed here can describe systematically a route from homogeneous state to the patterned state through the instability of homogeneous state, whereas previously proposed potentials can describe only the patterned state. The potential is constructed from two internal variables: one is the variable dependent on the spatial coordinate which exhibits the spatial pattern in the NDC region, while another remains constant spatially but changes discontinuously its value when the patterned state bifurcates from a thermodynamic branch of the homogeneous state. The bifurcation to spatial pattern is examined in a similar way to the first-order phase transition in equilibrium systems. At the same time, the property of the resulting pattern is discussed from analogy with the phase separation.