Uniformity and high temperature performance of X-band nitride power HEMTs fabricated from 2-inch epitaxy

X-band performance, high temperature D.C. operation and uniformity have been evaluated for 1 μm gate AlGaN/GaN HEMTs grown by RF atomic nitrogen plasma MBE. Deposition and fabrication were performed on 2-inch (0001) sapphire substrates to determine process uniformity. HEMTs with 300 μm total gate width and dual gate finger geometry have been fabricated with 650–700 cm² V⁻¹×s mobility. Maximum frequency cut-offs on the order of 8–10 GHz were achieved. D.C. performance at room temperature was >500 mA mm⁻¹, and external transconductance was >70 mS mm⁻¹. The transistors operated at test temperatures of 425°C in air.     

n-Channel AlSb/GaSb modulation-doped field-effect transistors

We report the first fabrication of a GaSb n-channel modulation-doped field-effect transistor (MODFET) grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The modulation-doped structure exhibits a room temperature Hall mobility of 3140 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and 77 K value of 16000 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, with corresponding sheet carrier densities of 1.3 × 10¹² cm⁻² and 1.2 × 10¹² cm⁻². Devices with 1 μm gate length yield transconductances of 180 mS mm⁻¹ and output of 5 mS mm⁻¹ at 85 K. The device characteristics indicate that electron transport in the channel occurs primarily via the L-valley of GaSb above 85 K. The effective electron saturation velocity is estimated to be 0.9 × 10⁷ cm s⁻¹. Calculations show that a complementary circuit consisting of GaSb n- and p-channel MODFETs can provide at least two times improvement in performance over AlGaAs/GaAs complementary circuits.     

Lateral tunneling transistors fabricated by plane-dependent Si-doping in nonplanar epitaxy on GaAs (311)A and (411)A substrates

We have demonstrated the lateral tunneling transistors on GaAs (311)A and (411)A patterned substrates by using the plane-dependent Si-doping technique. Lateral p⁺-n⁺ tunneling junctions are formed by growing heavily Si-doped layers on patterned substrates. Current—voltage curves for both transistors show gate-controlled negative differential resistance characteristics. Furthermore, the peak current density of the lateral tunneling diodes fabricated on the (311)A patterned substrates increases as buffer layer thickness is increased, and a typical peak current density of 58 A/cm² for p = 6 × 10¹⁹ cm⁻³ and n = 7 × 10¹⁸ cm⁻³ is obtained when the buffer layer thickness is 1.2 μm. This study shows that plane-dependent Si-doping in non-planar epitaxy is a promising technique for fabricating tunneling transistors.     

MBE growth and device applications of lattice-matched and strained heterostructures on (n11)-oriented and patterned substrates

The epitaxy of lattice-matched and strained semi-conducting films on patterned and misoriented substrates has led to new growth phenomena, material properties and device applications. Our work on InP- and GaAs-based heterostructures on (111)- and (311)-oriented substrates and strained heterostructures on planar and patterned (small area) substrates is described in this paper. The possibility of reliable and reproducible p-type doping of (311)A GaAs by Si during molecular-beam epitaxial growth and the application of such doping in the realization of high-performance electronic devices have been investigated. It is seen that p-type doping up to a free hole concentration of 4 × 10¹⁹ cm⁻³ is obtained at low ( 500°C) growth temperature and high As₄ flux. The incorporation of Si atoms into electrically active As sites is at least 95%. n-p-n heterojunction bipolar transistors grown by all-Si doping exhibit excellent current voltage characteristics and a common emitter current gain β = 240. Doped channel p-type heterojunction field-effect transistors have transconductance g_m = 25 mS/mm. We have experimentally and theoretically studied piezo-electric field effects in InP-based In_xGa_{1 − x}As/In_0.52Al_0.48As pseudomorphic quantum wells grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on (111)B InP substrates. The electro-optic coefficients of this material were measured and found to be much larger than that of GaAs. We have also investigated the consequences of altered growth modes on the epitaxy of highly strained InGaAs on patterned small area (001) GaAs substrates. Al_0.15Ga_0.85As/In_0.25Ga_0.75As pseudomorphic modulation-doped field-effect transistors and strained In_xGa_{1 − x}As/GaAs p-i-n photodiodes have been fabricated on patterned (100)-GaAs substrates and characterized. Compared with devices made on planar substrates, small area growth improves the dc transconductance by 40% and current gain cutoff frequency by 50% in the transistors. Photodiodes grown in small recesses (30 μm) exhibit 2–4 times higher quantum efficiency than those on planar substrates.     

Direct recombination in GaAs and some consequences in transistor design

Experiments are presented indicating that the recombination rate R in GaAs is given by the expression R = Bpn. The theory of Hall for direct transition is used to calculate the value of B as 1·4×10⁻¹⁰ cm³/sec. Practical GaAs transistors are shown to be feasible if base widths of 1 μ are used.     

Ohmic contacts for GaAs devices

Contact alloys were developed for use on a wide variety of GaAs devices such as high temperature transistors and Gunn oscillators. The alloys are composed of silver, indium and germanium for n-type GaAs and of silver, indium and zinc for p-type GaAs. Fabrication steps that require temperatures of up to 770°K for already contacted devices can be performed. GaAs transistors can be operated over a range from 20 to 770°K using Ag-In-Ge contacts for emitter and collector and Ag-In-Zn contacts for the base. Gunn oscillators have been built for the frequency range between 13 and 26 GHz with efficiencies as high as 3 percent at 15.8 GHz and as high as 1 percent at 25 GHz in continuous wave operation. A simple technique was developed to evaluate the specific contact resistance on thin epitaxial layers. Specific contact resistance is well below 10⁻⁴ ω-cm² on 0.1 ω-cm or lower resistivity p- or n-type GaAs. The highest value was 1 × 10⁻³ ω-cm² measured on 0.6–2.6 ω-cm n-type GaAs.     

Hydrogen “doped” thin film diamond field effect transistors for high power applications

Early predictions that diamond would be a suitable material for high performance, high power devices were not supported by the characteristics of diodes and field effect transistors (FETs) fabricated on boron doped (p-type) thin film material. In this paper commercially accessible polycrystalline thin film diamond has been turned p-type by the incorporation of near surface hydrogen; mobility values as high as 70 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ have been measured for films with a carrier concentration of 5×10¹⁷ cm⁻³. Schottky diodes and metal–semiconductor FETs (MESFETs) have been fabricated using this approach which display unprecedented performance levels; diodes with a rectification ratio >10⁶, leakage currents <1 nA, no indication of reverse bias breakdown at 100 V and an ideality factor of 1.1 have been made. Simple MESFET structures that are capable of switching V_DS values of 100 V with low leakage and current saturation (pinch-off) characteristics have also been fabricated. Predictions based upon experiments performed on these devices suggest that optimised device structures will be capable of operation at power levels up to 20 W mm⁻¹, implying that thin film diamond may after all be an interesting material for power applications.     

Effect of gate length on DC performance of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs grown by MBE

The DC performance of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy was investigated for gate lengths in the range 0.1–1.2 μm. On 0.25 μm gate length devices we obtained 40 V_DS operation with >50 mA peak I_D. The peak drain current density was 0.44 A/mm for 100 μm gate width devices with 1.2 μm gate lengths. The extrinsic transconductance (g_m) decreased with both gate length and gate width and was 75 mS/mm for all gate widths for 0.25 μm devices. E-beam written gates typically produced a slightly lower Schottky barrier height than optically patterned gates.     

Optimization of sub-0.1-μm offset Γ-shaped gate MHEMTs for millimeter-wave applications

We examine the effects of device scaling in both vertical and lateral dimensions for the metamorphic high electron mobility transistors (MHEMTs) on the DC and millimeter-wave electrical performances by using a hydrodynamic transport model. The well-calibrated hydrodynamic simulation for the sub-0.1-μm offset Γ-gate In_0.53Ga_0.47As/In_0.52Al_0.48As MHEMTs shows a reasonable agreement with the electrical characteristics measured from the fabricated 0.1 μm devices. We have calibrated all the parameters using the measurement data with various physical considerations to take into account the sophisticated carrier transport physics in sub-0.1-μm devices. Being simulated with these calibrated parameters, the optimum device performance is obtained at a source-drain spacing of 2 μm, a gate length of 0.05 μm, a barrier thickness of 10 nm and a channel thickness of 12 nm.     

High-performance In0.08Ga0.92As MESFETs onGaAs(100) substrates

In_0.08Ga_0.92As MESFETs were grown in GaAs (100) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The structure comprised an undoped compositionally graded In_xGa_1-x As buffer layer, an In_0.08Ga_0.92As active layer, and an n⁺-In_0.08Ga_0.92As cap layer. FETs with 50-μm width and 0.4-μm gate length were fabricated using the standard processing technique. The best device showed a maximum current density of 700 mA/mm and a transconductance of 400 mS/mm. The transconductance is extremely high for the doping level used and is comparable to that of a 0.25-μm gate GaAs MESFET with an active layer doped to 10¹⁸ cm^-3. The current-gain cutoff frequency was 36 GHz and the power-gain cutoff frequency was 65 GHz. The current gain cutoff frequency is comparable to that of a 0.25-μm gate GaAs MESFET     

Heterostructure devices using self-aligned p-type diffused ohmiccontacts

Describes the use of a p-type refractory ohmic contact in ohmic self-aligned devices. The contacts are based on self-aligned diffusion of zinc-doped tungsten film. The diffusion is nearly isotropic in the vicinity of silicon nitride sidewalls, allowing self-alignment of ohmic contacts with emitters and gates. Low-resistance contacts (<10^-6 Ω·cm²) are formed both to GaAs and GaAlAs, and the lifetime of the diffused region is superior to that obtained from implantation. Heterostructure bipolar transistors (HBTs) showing high current gains (⩾50 at 2×10³ A·cm^-2 and ⩾200 at 1×10⁵ A·cm^-2 with micrometer-sized emitter widths) and p-channel GaAs gate heterostructure field-effect transistors (HFETs) showing high transconductances (78 mS/mm at 2.2-μm gate length) have been fabricated using this contact     

GaAs field effect transistors fabricated by imprint lithography

A GaAs metal–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MESFET) has been realized based on mix-and-match fabrication using optical lithography for the ohmic contacts and imprint lithography for the gate. The gate length and width are 1.2 and 80 μm, respectively, the channel length is 4 μm. For the gate definition a Si-mold is embossed into a thin polymer film located on top of an n-doped GaAs layer. The gate is fabricated by metal evaporation and lift-off.     

Ultrahigh-frequency performance of submicrometer-gate ion-implantedGaAs MESFETs

A study of the high-frequency performance of short-gate ion-implanted GaAs MESFETs with gate lengths of 0.3 and 0.5 μm is discussed. Excellent DC and microwave performance have been achieved with an emphasis on the reduction of effective gate length during device fabrication. From f_t of 83 and 48 GHz for 0.3-0.5-μm gate devices, respectively, an electron velocity of 1.5×10⁷ cm/s is estimated. An f_t of 240 GHz is also projected for a 0.1-μm-gate GaAs MESFET. These experimental results are believed to be comparable to those of the best HEMTs (high-electron-mobility transistors) reported and higher than those generally accepted for MESFETs     

Process and device characterization of high voltage gallium arsenide P-i-N layers grown by an improved liquid phase epitaxy method

GaAs P-i-N layers with an i-region net doping of less than 10¹² cm⁻³ were grown on P⁺ and N⁺ substrates by a modified liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) method. Doping profiles and structural data obtained by varius characterization techniques are presented and discussed. A P⁺-P-i-N-N⁺ diode with a 25 μm-wide i-region exhibits a breakdown voltage of 1000 V, a t_rr of 50 ns, and reverse current densities (at V_R = 800 V) of − 3 × 10⁻⁶ A/cm² at 25°C and 10⁻² A/cm² at 260° C.     

Efficient GaAs---Ga1−xAlxAs heterostructure electroluminescent diodes

The development of efficient GaAs(Zn) electroluminescent diodes using a GaAs---Ga_1−xAl_xAs single heterostructure design is reported. External equantum efficiencies (300°K) of 10 per cent have been achieved at 9100 Å (1.36 eV) with pulsed current densities at and above 70 A/cm² on square diodes embedded in epoxy domes. The heterostructure consists of a Ga_1−xAl_xAs (Zn) p-layer grown by liquid phase epitaxy on an n-type GaAs substrate with the simultaneous diffusion of Zn a distance of 2 μm into the substrate. Several features of the heterostructure design contribute to the high efficiency: (1) the 9100 Å emission suffers little absorption in the Ga_1−xAl_xAs, (2) there is little nonradiative recombination at the GaAs---Ga_1−xAl_xAs interface, and (3) the compensated p-region produces 9100 Å radiation whichi s not strongly absorbed in the n-GaAs regions of the device. The external quantum efficiencies obtained with the heterostructure devices are nearly an order of magnitude higher than those obtained from conventional Zn-diffused GaAs homostructure diodes with similar geometry. The solution growth, fabrication, and electroluminescence properties of the heterostructure diodes are described.     

Cyclotron oscillations in a tilted magnetic field: A tool to measure the mean free path of ballistic electrons in high purity GaAs

The mean free path (mfp) of ballistic electrons in high purity GaAs was measured using a novel effect due to the cyclotron motion of ballistic electrons in tilted magnetic fields. Whenever the cyclotron orbit is commensurate with the device length an increase in the collected current is observed, leading to pronounced oscillations. We utilize the fact that the total path length varies as we change the angle of the magnetic field to extract the mfp using a single device. For high purity GaAs with an impurity concentration N_a+N_d≈6 × 10¹⁴ cm⁻³ we measure an mfp of ≈4 μm for electrons below the optical phonon energy. We suggest that the observed mfp is primarily due to impact ionization of neutral donors by the ballistic electrons. The large contrast of the oscillations proves that both injection and collection give preference to the direction normal to the layers and thus, that the momentum component parallel to the layers is conserved during transmission over the barrier.     

A 75 μW rail-to-rail class AB CMOS operational amplifier

A new class AB CMOS operational amplifier featuring rail-to-rail output swing is presented. The proposed circuit operates with an output voltage supply of 1 V only, while the overall power consumption is lower than 75 μW. The output stage shows a quiescent current of 15 μA, while it guarantees a peak current of 220 μA. The slew rate is 1.5 V μs⁻¹ (C₁ = 150 pF) and the THD is −63 dB, when a 0.98 V_pp−10.4 kHz sinewave is applied, as measured on an experimental prototype realised with a standard 0.8 μm CMOS process. The circuit presented is suitable for use in portable hand-set systems or in medical aids.     

Effect of heating on the structure of Au/GaAs encapsulated with SiO2

The structural effects of heating 1500 Å Au/GaAs (001) encapsulated with 2000 Å of SiO₂ were examined by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. It was observed that SiO₂/Au/GaAs (capped) in vacuum up to 500°C remained shiny and gold in color, whereas similar heating of Au/GaAs (uncapped) caused a change of color from shiny gold to dull silver. Furthermore, mass spectroscopy showed that the amount of arsenic vapor evolved was much less for the capped sample. However, X-ray diffraction showed that Au₇Ga₂ formed abundantly in both types of samples after heating at 500°C, though the epitaxial relationship was mainly Au₇Ga₂ (001) GaAs (001) for capped and Au₇Ga₂ (100) GaAs (001) for uncapped. SEM revealed gold-rich aligned rectangular protrusions on the surfaces of SiO₂/Au/GaAs as well as Au/GaAs after heating at 500°C, though the average length of these rectangles was 1.5 μm for the capped sample and 6.7 μm for the uncapped sample. Moreover, new morphological features absent in Au/GaAs were observed in SiO₂/Au/GaAs. These features are a gold-rich maze with a line width of μm and gold-rich protruded lines with a line width of 9 μm. The gold-rich protruded lines were formed by the growth and joining together of some gold-rich aligned rectangular protrusions. The gold-rich maze was observed in SiO₂/Au/GaAs after heating in vacuum, but was not observed in SiO₂/Au/GaAs after heating in nitrogen.     

Low ballistic mobility in submicron HEMTs

Ballistic effects in short channel high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) greatly reduce the field effect mobility compared to that in long gate structures. This reduction is related to a finite electron acceleration time in the channel under the device gate. As an example, the field effect mobility at room temperature in 0.15-μm gate AlGaAs/GaAs HEMTs cannot exceed 3000 cm²/V-s. These predictions are consistent with the values of the field effect mobility extracted from the measured AlGaAs/GaAs HEMT current-voltage characteristics     

Design study of AlGaAs/GaAs HBTs

The frequency performance of AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) having different layouts, doping profiles, and layer thicknesses was assessed using the BIPOLE computer program. The optimized design of HBTs was studied, and the high current performances of HBTs and polysilicon emitter transistors were compared. It is shown that no current crowding effect occurs at current densities less than 1×10⁵ A/cm² for the HBT with emitter stripe width S_E<3 μm, and the HBT current-handling capability determined by the peak current-gain cutoff frequency is more than twice as large as that of the polysilicon emitter transistor. An optimized maximum oscillation frequency formula has been obtained for a typical process n-p-n AlGaAs/GaAs HBT having base doping of 1×10 ¹⁹ cm^-3