AlGaInN power transistors: status and prospects

InN, GaN, A1N and their alloys were first studied in the 1960's for application to short wavelength emitters and for high power/high temperature electronics. These efforts languished due to the lack of a bulk substrate technology and the inability to produce low defect and low impurity heteroepitaxy films. In light of this, the compound semiconductor community moved on to Arsenide- and Phosphide-based materials that resulted in the device technologies now driving microwave wireless communications and many military electromagnetic systems. AlGalnN materials, however, are now poised to challenge the conventional III-V semiconductors for power generation, at least up to K-band, as a result of drastic material improvements driven, initially, by photonic applications. In this talk, the status of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) and heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) will be presented. Ongoing and future work to increase the operating frequency and output power will also be addressed.