High Electron Mobility Transistors For Millimeter Wave And High Speed Digital IC Applications

Aditya K. Gupta; J. A. Higgins; Chien-Ping Lee

doi:10.1117/12.940931

2 February 1988 High Electron Mobility Transistors For Millimeter Wave And High Speed Digital IC Applications

Aditya K. Gupta, J. A. Higgins, Chien-Ping Lee

Proceedings Volume 0795, Characterization of Very High Speed Semiconductor Devices and Integrated Circuits; (1988) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.940931
Event: Advances in Semiconductors and Semiconductor Structures, 1987, Bay Point, FL, United States

Abstract

High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) are currently regarded as the most promising three-terminal devices for ultra-high-speed digital and monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuits. In their most basic form, these devices consist of a GaAs-MESFET-like FET fabricated on a (A1,Ga)As/GaAs epitaxial layer. The (A1,Ga)As layer is highly doped n-type and the GaAs layer is undoped. Due to the lower electron affinity of (A1,Ga)As, free electrons diffuse out of the doped layer into undoped GaAs where they form a two-dimensional electron gas near the heterointerface. Since the electrons and ionized donors are spatially separated, ionized impurity scattering is reduced and electron transport properties at the heterointerface are comparable to pure GaAs. FETs fabricated on these hetero-junctions offer many advantages such as (i) a small gate-to-channel separation which leads to extremely high transconductances; (ii) high f due to improved electron transport properties; (iii) a small source resistance; and (ivy a small saturation voltage. The benefits improve substantially upon cooling the device. In a mere seven years, HEMT technology has evolved from simple ring oscillators to circuits of LSI complexity such as 16K SRAMs. The speed performance demonstrated by this relatively immature technology has already surpassed all other semiconductor technologies. Ring oscillator gate delays of 5.8 ps at 77K and 10.2 ps at 300K have been achieved using'0.35 μm gate length devices. In the analog domain, HEMTs are the leaders in low noise and high gain amplification. At room temperatures, devices with a noise figure of 2.4 dB at 62 GHz and fmax > 250 GHz have been demonstrated.

Citation Download Citation

Aditya K. Gupta, J. A. Higgins, and Chien-Ping Lee "High Electron Mobility Transistors For Millimeter Wave And High Speed Digital IC Applications", Proc. SPIE 0795, Characterization of Very High Speed Semiconductor Devices and Integrated Circuits, (2 February 1988); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.940931

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