Effect of device geometry on static and dynamic performance of AlGaN/GaN-on-Si high electron mobility transistor

This paper discusses the effects of several geometric parameters in DC and RF performances of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) grown on high-resistivity silicon substrates. Those parameters include the dependency of gate length (L g), gate cap length (L cap) and gate-to-source distance (L gs). It is shown that decreasing L g and L gs can both improve maximum drain current and transconductance behaviors. The fabricated 50 μm wide GaN-HEMT exhibits the maximum drain current of 1 A mm−1 at V g = 2 V and maximum extrinsic transconductance G mmax of 240 mS mm−1. Besides, decreasing L g and L cap also provides the improvement on current gain frequency (fT ) and maximum oscillation cut off frequency (f MAX). The fT of 40 GHz and f MAX of 55 GHz at V ds = 5 V are demonstrated by GaN-HEMT device featuring L g of 200 nm, L cap of 300 nm and L gs of 1.2 μm, which can realize the compact solid-state power amplifier used in S and C band. However, gate-to-source distance has little effect on RF performance of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. Those results compared in our study are not only very essential for accurate GaN-based HEMT device modeling and fabrication, but are also vital to better understanding of their device physics.