CHAPTER 2

HEMT DEVICES AND BACKGROUND

2.1 Overview

While the most widespread application of GaN-based devices is in the

fabrication of blue and UV LEDs, the fabrication of microwave power devices
has attracted much attention because of large potential markets. The world
market for transistors is divided between bipolar and field effect transistors,
depending on application. For GaN applications there has been research into both
Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors (HBTs) and High Electron Mobility
Transistors (HEMTs). State-of-the-art AlGaN/GaN HBTs generally still offer
poor performance and typically have current gains of ~10. Makimoto et al., have
achieved promising results with GaN/InGaN Double Heterojunction Bipolar
Transistors (DHBT) having current gains greater than 2000 and breakdown
voltages above 50V. However, the progress made in HBTs has been very slow
owing mostly to the poor acceptor activation in the base layer. As a result, most
research has focussed on field effect transistors with both Metal Semiconductor
Field Effect Transistors (MESFETs) and HEMTs receiving considerable
attention. In this dissertation, the work has focussed on AlGaN/GaN HEMTs and
this chapter will discuss the theory behind the operation of HEMTs, 2
Dimensional Electron Gas (2DEG) formation, various effects in HEMTs and
different techniques involved in HEMT breakdown voltage improvement.

2.2 HEMT Structure

The HEMT is a heterojunction device with superior performance to its

homojunction counterpart, the MESFET. The principle of operation in a HEMT
is very similar to Metal Insulator Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor

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(MISFET). However, instead of carrying current in a thick channel, a HEMT
relies on the formation of a two dimensional electron gas at the heterojunction
interface.

A typical cross-sectional schematic of AlGaN/GaN HEMT device is

shown in Figure 2.1. The device is usually grown on a semi-insulating substrate
which has a high thermal stability and close lattice matching with GaN. A buffer
layer is grown on top of the substrate to act as an isolation layer between the
substrate and channel. Any lattice mismatching or crystal defects from the
substrate are minimised using this GaN buffer layer. The device usually uses a
schottky gate contact and ohmic source and drain contact. The channel in a
HEMT is formed at the heterojunction interface of the AlGaN barrier and GaN
channel layer. The following section describes more about the operation of
HEMT.

Source - Ohmic Gate - Schottky Drain - Ohmic

AlxGa(1-x)N Barrier

UID GaN Channel 2DEG

Buffer Layer

Semi Insulating Substrate

Figure 2.1. Layer structure of a typical AlxGa(1-x)N/GaN HEMT.

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2.3 HEMT Operation

In the most common HEMT structures, the wide bandgap barrier is doped
n-type while the narrow bandgap channel remains undoped. As a result, electrons
diffuse from the wide bandgap material into the narrow bandgap material to
minimise their energy. This process continues until a balanced Fermi level is
formed in the two materials and equilibrium is established. Because of the
resulting electrostatics, a new triangular well forms on the narrow bandgap side
of the heterojunction. Which we call it as two dimensional quantum well and the
electrons confined inside the well is called Two Dimensional Electron Gas
(2DEG).

The n-doped barrier in the device supplies electrons to the undoped

channel, thus spatially separating the channel charge carriers from their ionised
donors. In this manner, the heterostructure channel is capable of delivering high
carrier concentration with high mobility as impurity scattering is minimised in
the undoped channel. As an added advantage, surface scattering is also reduced
by moving the current-carrying region below the barrier. To understand the
principle of operation and techniques, the formation of 2DEG and different
effects involved in the HEMT are explained in the following sections.

2.3.1 Two Dimensional Electron Gas (2DEG) in HEMT

A schematic band diagram of a modulation doped heterostructure is

shown in Figure 2.2. It consists of a wide gap semiconductor (AlGaN) and a
semiconductor with narrower gap (GaN). At the interface a triangular quantum
well is formed in the undoped narrow gap material. Electrons from the wider
band gap material fall into this potential well and are confined within the well.
Because of such quantum mechanical confinement in a very narrow dimension,
they form a high density of electron gas in two dimensions. Electrons can move
freely within the plane of the heterointerface, while the motion in the direction
perpendicular to the heterointerface is restricted to a well-defined space region by
energy, momentum, and wave function quantization, thus forms the so-called

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2DEG. As the narrow gap material is undoped and these electrons are away from
the interface, the electron mobility can be simultaneously increased with high
concentration of carriers.

Figure 2.3 shows the polarization vectors in the AlGaN and underlying
GaN. Within the AlGaN layer there are two polarization vectors Ppe, AlGaN and
Psp, AlGaN for the piezoelectric and spontaneous polarizations respectively. The
polarization in the AlGaN causes dipole charges to form at the borders of the
material with a negative sheet charge at the surface and an equal positive sheet
charge at the AlGaN/GaN junction. The polarization in the GaN layer causes a
negative sheet charge at the AlGaN/GaN junction and an equal positive sheet
charge on the bottom surface. Since the total polarization in the AlGaN is larger,
the overall result is a net positive sheet charge at the AlGaN/GaN interface.

Figure 2.2 An idealised AlGaN/GaN heterostructure 2DEG formation

Ppe, AlGaN + Psp, AlGaN

Psp, GaN

Figure 2.3 Spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization vectors in AlGaN and

GaN.

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 Notice that the bottom GaN and AlGaN/GaN interfaces are both positive
while the charge density at the top AlGaN interface is negative. The critical point
to remember is that the interface sheet charges here are not free carriers. They are
induced charges as in a typically polarised dielectric. However, it is the presence
of these charges and the polarization induced electric field in the AlGaN which
allows for 2DEG formation without barrier doping.

2.3.2 Different types of Effects in HEMT

There are different effects present in the operation of HEMT devices such
as Polarization effects and Trapping Effects. The following section describes
more details about various effects in the HEMT devices.

2.3.2.1 Polarization in AlGaN/GaN Heterostructures

It is now widely recognized that built in electric fields due to polarization

induced charges play an important role in the electrical and optical properties of
Nitride heterostructures grown in [0001] orientation (Parvesh Gangwani et al.,
2007). These fields also provide a source of a 2-dimensional electron gas in
AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. In HFETs, the understanding and controlling of the
source of electrons is important for the optimization of their performance. The
polarization effect in HFETs are well explained by Jia L., et al (2001).

Spontaneous Polarization: Al-N and Ga-N bonds are highly ionic and each
carries a strong dipole. For example, because the electronegativity of N is much
higher than that of Ga, the electron wave function around the Ga-N pair is offset
to the nitrogen side. The effect is even more exaggerated in the Al-N pair. This is
a special feature of the III-nitrides as the degree of spontaneous polarization is
more than five times greater than in most III-V semiconductors.

Figure 2.4 shows GaN grown in the Ga-face and N-face orientation which
is the norm for high performance AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. The c-axis
polarization vector points from the nitrogen to the Gallium, as indicated, and
creates an internal electric field pointing in the opposite direction, this is referred

14
to as “spontaneous polarization”. In an AlGaN/GaN HEMT both the GaN and
AlGaN layers have spontaneous polarization vectors which point in the same
direction, from the N to the Ga(Al) towards the substrate (Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.4 Ga-face and N-face Wurtzite GaN structure

Piezoelectric Polarization: The lattice constants a0 and c0 for GaN are slightly
larger than those for AIN. As a result, thin AlGaN layers grown on GaN are
tensile strained (the GaN is relaxed due to the thick buffer grown on the chosen
substrate). In the nitride system the piezoelectric constants are more than ten
times greater than those typical in most III-V semiconductors and this creates
very large polarizations. In Ga-faced material under tensile strain the
piezoelectric polarization due to the deformation of the AlGaN layer points
parallel to the spontaneous polarization vectors, e.g. towards the substrate in
Figure 2.4 A thorough treatment calculating the size of the spontaneous and
piezoelectric polarizations in the AlGaN and GaN systems is given by Ambacher
et al.

2.3.2.2 Trapping in Semiconductor Materials

AlGaN/GaN HEMTs show strong current slump which is widely

considered to be caused by electron trapping. Traps are very often surface related
so it is not unreasonable to suppose they may contribute to current slump effects

15
in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. Aside from surface effects, traps may also be formed by
dislocations, point defects or impurities.

2.4 Contacts in a HEMT

Besides the electronic properties of the layer structure such as carrier

mobility or conductivity of 2DEG, the metal contacts also determine the DC and
RF properties of the final device. The quality of the contact is crucial to stable
operation of transistor. Ohmic contact have to carry signal with minimal
resistance and without rectification. On the other side Schottky contact have to
dispone with high barrier height to AlGaN/GaN structure.

2.4.1 Ohmic Contacts

The next type of contact present in the device is ohmic contact. In general,
an ohmic contact is referred to a non-injecting contact in which the current-
voltage relationship under both reverse- and forward-bias condition is linear and
symmetrical. However, in reality, a contact is considered ohmic if the voltage
drop across the metal semiconductor interface is negligible compared to the
voltage drop across the bulk semiconductor. It is difficult to make ohmic contact
to wide-gap semiconductor (e.g. III-group nitrides), because it does not generally
exist in metal with low-enough work function to yield a low barrier. Therefore
the practical way to obtain a low resistance ohmic contact is to increase the
doping level near the metal-semiconductor interface to very high level. So in
some cases a highly doped GaN layer is placed at the top of AlGaN/GaN
heterostructure in effort to lower the barrier.

Ohmic contacts allow current to pass into and out of the underlying
semiconductor with ease. Formation of ohmic contacts with low resistivity is
critical for optimal device performance. The cut-off frequency of a FET is
strongly determined by the transconductance, gm, of the device.

Ft= gm/2πCg (2.1)

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 The transconductance in equation (2.1) is the extrinsic transconductance,
that is, the overall transconductance offered by the device, including the parasitic
ohmic contacts. The transconductance, and thus ft, in equation (2.1) can be
increased by reducing the resistivity of the ohmic contacts.

gm= gmo/(1+Rsgmo) (2.2)

Equation (2.2) shows how the extrinsic transconductance is related to the

intrinsic transconductance gmo. The value of gmo is determined by the layer
quality and basic gate geometry and represents the maximum transconductance
value that is attainable for the device. Rs, the source resistance, is the resistance
between the top of the source ohmic contact, through the semiconductor, to the
gate edge. Equation (2.2) expresses how the source resistance is a parasitic
circuit element and the reduction of these parasitic elements results in improved
device performance. Formation of a good ohmic contact ideally requires
choosing a metal with a very small work function.

2.4.2 Schottky Contacts

Schottky contacts is one of the important building block for HEMT

devices. The device formed using schottky contact may have great impact in the
device performance. The critical elements at play for the Schottky contacts are
diode idealities close to unity, low gate leakage current to allow for effective
channel modulation, and small gate length to improve cut-off frequency.

Ideally, fabrication of quality Schottky contacts on n-type material

requires the use of metals with large work functions. Besides, the metal-
semiconductor junction must be thermally stable and the gate metal must also be
highly conductive to minimise the gate resistance.

The energy barrier height ɸB is a key parameter of the junction, controlling

both the width of depletion region in the semiconductor and the electron current
across the interface. Barrier height is defined as the energy difference between

17
the semiconductor conduction-band edge of the interface and the Fermi level in
the metal.

For undoped semiconductor the electrons cross through the barrier mainly
by passing over the barrier, by thermionic emission. In the case of doped
heterostructure, electrons also tunnel through the barrier at some elevated
energies, by thermionic field emission. In the case of very high doping the
depletion region is very thin and electrons tunnel through the barrier. The IV
characteristic gets linear, when the resistance is low and the contact becomes
ohmic. The value of barrier height depends on the difference between the
electron affinities for the metal and the semiconductor. This is more or less only
a theoretical case. In reality the deposition of metal to semiconductor gives a
large number of interface states at the metal-semiconductor interface. High
interface state density causes that Fermi level is pinned at certain level in the
energy gap. Then the calculation of Schottky barrier requires detailed
information on the distribution of interface states. The Schottky- barrier height is
normally determined from experimental current voltage characteristics.

Schottky Contact in HEMT Devices: High frequency RF device requires a

perfect contact to work in close synchronisation with the high mobility 2DEG
channel. A Schottky Source/Drain (SSD) HEMT reduces the leakage current and
increases the on current of the device, the reduced leakage current
simultaneously increases the breakdown voltage of the device. The Schottky
Contact technology can be adopted to achieve a high improvement in the Off-
state breakdown voltage (BV) of the lattice-matched In0.17Al0.83N/GaN HEMT.
The Schottky-Source/Drain and Schottky-source (SS) AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are
used.

A Schottky-barrier normally off InAlN-based HEMT is another kind of

HEMT device, which finds more application where high frequency is required.
High Off-state breakdown, low gate leakage current and high frequency are the
main advantage in these kind of device. For the fabrication of the device

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structure, Metal–Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) is used. To
create a negative polarization in the junction 1-nm InAlN/1-nm AlN barrier stack
is capped with a 2-nm-thick undoped GaN. Negative polarization charge at the
GaN/InAlN junction depletes the channel below the gate and reduces the gate
leakage. After removing the GaN cap at access regions, electrons populate the
channel.

The relationship between Schottky gate leakage current and the breakdown
voltage of AlGaN/GaN HEMT is based on the surface defect charge model. The
leakage current caused by the positive charge in the surface portion of AlGaN
layer induced by process damage such as nitrogen vacancies are represented in
this model. To effectively suppress this surface charge influence, a field plated
structure is effective. The gate leakage current increases with the defect charge
due to thinning of the Schottky barrier and the field plated device structure
reduces the electric field concentration at the gate edge. This will effectively
increase the device breakdown voltage. To suppress the surface damage at the
AlGaN layer, a low-damage fabrication process is most important point
regarding development of the AlGaN/GaN-HEMT for the power electronics
application due to low leakage current and high breakdown voltage. To further
enhance the power performance of the device, the drain region design should be
optimized.

2.5 Proposed Work

The main objective of this research is to improve the breakdown voltage

characteristics of the GaN based HEMT device. In order to achieve this we have
proposed 3 different breakdown voltage improvement techniques.

Figure 2.5 shows the research flow diagram followed in this thesis. The
three different technique is designed and simulated using Sentauraus TCAD
simulator and comparison has been made to analyse the performance and
characteristics of each technique. The following section explains more details
about the current high power HEMT techniques.

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 Gallium Nitride (GaN) Based High Power High Electron
Mobility Transistor (HEMT)

Breakdown voltage improvement techniques in AlGaN/GaN

HEMT

Schottky Source High-K Passivation Gate Field Plated

drain contact Layer Technique Engineering
AlGaN/GaN HEMT

Simulation and Analysis of HEMT Device

Comparative analysis of all the three technique to identify the

technique relevant application

Figure 2.5 Research flow diagram

2.5.1 Gallium Nitride (GaN) Based High Power HEMT

HEMT was originally developed for high frequency RF application due to
its outstanding performance in high frequency operation. The development of
high quality GaN epitaxial films gave an extra mileage for the HEMT device in
high power application. Nowadays it finds application where high frequency and
high power are demanded, such as satellite communication and space
applications.

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2.5.2 Breakdown voltage improvement techniques in AlGaN/GaN HEMT

Breakdown is an important problem for high power HEMT devices. In

order to tackle breakdown issue of HEMT many investigations are carried out to
understand its physical origin. Some of the relevant breakdown mechanism in
HEMT devices are,

 Source-drain breakdown due to short channel effect

 Hetero structure fabrication defects and trap related problem.

 Impact ionisation mechanism, sudden increase in drain current due to

carrier collapse.

 High gate electric field, due to the schottky contact leakage current or
through surface related conduction.

There are different techniques available to improve the Breakdown voltage of a

transistor, some of the common techniques and its review is given.

 Schottky source/drain contact HEMT

 Field plated HEMT
 Passivation layer in HEMT

2.5.3 Schottky Source/Drain Contact technique in HEMT

In this type of power HEMT, schottky contact is utilized on both source

and drain contact to suppress the ON-Resistance (Ron) and leakage current.
Usually Ni/Au Schottky contacts are used for contact in the source and drain
contact. To achieve a high breakdown voltage it is necessary to have a reduced
leakage current and Ron. The Schottky source/ drain (SSD) HEMT is dominated
and induced by the gate leakage and gives a reduced leakage current and Ron,
this makes the SSD HEMT a good candidate for high breakdown voltage
application.

In Schottky contact method, a metal layer is grown over the AlGaN/GaN

using various techniques. The Schottky contact at the source region can

21
effectively suppress the source carrier injection since the smooth Schottky
metallization produces a more uniform electric-field distribution in GaN buffer.
Figure 2.6 shows a GaN/AlGaN schottky source/drain contact HEMT.

Source Drain
(Ni/Au) Gate (Ni/Au)
Passivation Passivation
Al0.15Ga0.85N Undoped

S.I GaN Buffer Layer

Figure 2.6 Source/Drain schottky contact GaN/AlGaN HEMT.

2.5.4 Passivation Layer technique in HEMT

Passivation is becoming increasingly important for GaN high electron-

mobility transistors (HEMTs) as the demand for high power devices and circuits
for applications at higher frequencies is getting ever stronger. This is because the
field plate, which has been widely adopted in GaN HEMTs for improving power
and reliability, would degrade the device gain due to the additional parasitic
capacitance that it would introduce. Furthermore, the vertical scaling for thinner
gate barrier, needed for keeping up the aspect ratio of devices with reduced gate
lengths to be operational at higher frequencies, would make the channel of the
GaN HEMT more sensitive to the traps originating from surface states. The
resulting trapping effects could lead to severe deterioration in power performance
and poor uniformity. These trapping effects are assumed to be associated with
surface states created by dangling bonds, threading dislocations accessible at the
surface and ions absorbed from ambient environment.

In order to reduce this degradation, the HEMT surface is passivated with

suitable dielectric materials which is shown in Figure 2.7. The permittivity and

22
thickness of the dielectric material are the key factors for the improvement in the
breakdown voltage. It has been found that by increasing the permittivity or by
increasing the thickness of the passivation layer, the breakdown voltage also
increases because of the weakening of the electric field at the drain edge of the
gate. Thus by using high-k material and thick passivation layer, breakdown
voltage can be increased.

Figure 2.7 Schottky with High-k Passivation in the GaN/AlGaN HEMT.

2.5.5 Field Plate engineering technique in HEMT

A noteworthy improvement in the device performance can be obtained by

adopting the field plate technique which is shown in Figure 2.8. The main
purpose of the field plate is to reshape the electric field distribution in the
channel and to reduce its peak value on the drain side of the gate edge.
Introducing a field plate in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs reduces the current collapse
which in turn increases the power performance. The benefit is an increase of the
breakdown voltage and a reduced high-field trapping effect. Overall the power
density is increased. Various field plate methods like gate field plate, a floating
field plate, multiple field plate, etc have been reported so far. It has been found
that by increasing the gate to drain distance and by reducing the field plate
length, breakdown voltage increases for a particular structure.

23
 Figure 2.8 Schottky with High-k Passivation in the GaN/AlGaN HEMT.

In The field plate technique, an additional lithography is done in order to

place a metal plate covering the gate and extending to the access region on the
drain side. This metal plate is electrically connected to the gate. It tracks the
potential of the gate electrode, acting as a quasi-electric field plate.The field
distribution at the drain of the gate region splits and reshape the distribution of
the electric field, hence the peak electric field reduces and increases the device
breakdown. The field-plate length dictates the size of the field-reshaping region.
This not only increases device breakdown voltage but also reduces the high-field
trapping effect, hence enhancing current-voltage swings at high frequencies. The
trade-off of the field plate structure includes addition of the gate-drain
capacitance at low voltages and extension of the gate-drain depletion length at
high voltages, which reduces gain as well as frequency of the device.

2.5.6 Simulation and Analysis of HEMT Device using TCAD

Technology Computer-Aided Design (TCAD) describes the process of

developing and optimizing the semiconductor processing technologies of the
devices by using computer simulations. The software solves fundamental,

24
physical partial differential equations, such as diffusion and transport equations,
to model the structural properties and electrical behavior of a self-designed
device structure. Sentaurus TCAD is one such software provided by Synopsys
for design and analysis of the devices. Technology CAD (TCAD) tools are
widely used today in the semiconductor industry and academic research. TCAD
simulation and modelling can be used to predict the device performance and
expedite the device development / optimization process for new technology.
They can also help us to understand device physics and operation mechanisms.

The TCAD tool used in this work is Sentaurus, advanced 1D, 2D, and 3D
device simulator capable of simulating the electrical, thermal, and optical
characteristics of silicon and compound semiconductor devices from Synopsis.
The TCAD simulation work consists of the following steps:

 Use the Sentaurus structure editor or Sentaurus process tool to

virtually fabricate the device
 Create an appropriate mesh for device simulation; Define
simulation parameters and models
 Perform numerical simulations and get device performance;
Generate output plots.

The software package provides a selection of tools to perform above

calculations which provides structured application of the software with
visualization aids to observe the physical properties inside the device structure.
The tools which have been used in this thesis include.

2.5.6.1 TCAD Carrier Transport Models

Sentaurus device supports several carrier transport models for

semiconductors. They can be written in the form of continuity equations, which
describe charge conservation. The transport models differ in the expressions used
to compute the electron current density and the hole current density. Depending

25
on the device under investigation and the level of modelling accuracy required,
you can select four different transport models:

 Drift-diffusion
 Thermodynamic
 Hydrodynamic
 Monte Carlo
The main feature of the HEMT is its high carrier mobility and polarization
effect. So in order to simulate a high mobility device with polarization effect
sentaurus device uses a physics model for piezoelectric polarization.

Semi classical transport models such as the Drift-Diffusion (DD) and the
Hydro-Dynamic (HD) model cannot be applied directly to the simulation of
quantum devices. The Hydrodynamic Density Gradient model (HDG) including
the Poisson equation, the electron continuity equation, the quantum potential
equation, hot carrier effects, scattering and energy balance equation is used along
with polarization model to simulate GaN/AlGaN HEMT devices.

Drift-Diffusion Model: The drift-diffusion model is the default carrier transport

model in Sentaurus Device. It uses Isothermal simulation, suitable for low-power
density devices with long active regions. It is not possible to use the drift-
diffusion model for a particular carrier type and to solve the carrier temperature
for the same carrier type.

Thermodynamic Model: The model differs from drift-diffusion when the lattice
temperature equation is solved. It accounts for self-heating. Suitable for devices
with low thermal exchange, particularly, high-power density devices with long
active regions.

Hydrodynamic Model: Accounts for energy transport of the carriers. Suitable for
devices with small active regions. This model takes into account the contribution
due to the spatial variations of electrostatic potential, electron affinity, and the
band gap etc..

26
Monte Carlo Model: Solves the Boltzmann equation for a full band structure.

Piezoelectric Polarization: There are two type of polarization piezoelectric and

spontaneous polarization. Sentaurus Device provides two models (strain and
stress) to compute polarization effects in GaN devices. They can be activated in
the Physics section of the command file as follows:

Physics { Piezoelectric_Polarization (strain)

Piezoelectric_Polarization (stress) }

The piezoelectric polarization vector and the piezoelectric charge can be plotted
by:

Plot {PE_Polarization/vector

PE_Charge }

2.5.6.2 RF Parameter Extraction using TCAD

AlGaN/GaN HEMTs receive considerable attention for high-power and

high-frequency applications because of the advantages of high breakdown
voltage and high electron velocity. High frequency analysis of the HEMT
devices are based on the measurement and evaluation of scattering parameters
(S-parameters). S-parameters are related to travelling waves that are scattered or
reflected when an n-port network is inserted into a transmission line. HEMT is
measured as a two-port network (Figure 2.9) where the input port corresponds to
gate-source and the output port to drain-source.

The various RF parameters of GaN/AlGaN HEMT such as Cut-off

Frequency, Maximum Frequency of oscillation, Mason’s Unilateral gain, Region
of Stability, Polar plot and Smith Chart can be analyzed with the help of this two
port network method. In this two-port network, the voltage sources are attached
to the gate (port 1) and drain (port 2) terminals and all other terminals are
grounded.

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 PORT 1 PORT 2

HEMT

Figure 2.9 HEMT in a two-port network

S-parameters of two-port network at different conditions are defined in equations

(2.3) to (2.6).

by,

(2.3)

(2.4)

(2.5)

(2.6)

where and are incident and reflected waves at input and output of

the transistor. S-parameters are measured as the function of the frequency. The
is called the input reflection coefficient, the reverse transmission

coefficient, the forward transmission coefficient, and the output reflection

coefficient. The basic quantities which are important for RF characterization of

device can be calculated directly from measured S-parameters. They are:

Maximum Available Power Gain MAG: Maximum available power gain

expresses maximal power gain by conjugate matching at input and output.

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Maximum Stable Gain MSG: MSG gives power gain of transistor at the stability
border, at K=1. K is called stability factor, speaks about stability of the transistor
in frequency range

Maximum Stable Gain MSG: MSG gives power gain of transistor at the stability
border, at K=1.

Unilateral Power Gain GU: Every transistor exhibits a retroactive capacitance

from the output toward input. GU considers only the power gain that is obtained
by compensation of these retroaction parameter by losses neutralization circuit.

For the practical application of transistor the figures of merit are unity current
gain frequency fT and unity power gain fmax.

Current Gain Cutoff Frequency fT: fT is the frequency at which magnitude of

the transistor incremental short-circuit current gain h21 drops to the unity. It is a
key estimator of transistor high-speed performance.

Mathematically fT is defined in equation (2.7)

fT :h21(fT) = 1 (2.7)

The Cut-off frequency of the device is plotted as a function of voltage bias

for three different extraction methods such as unit-gain-point, extract-at-dB point
and extract-at-frequency of the two-port network. The Cut-off frequency of the
GaN/AlGaN HEMT is given by the equation (2.8),

Cut-off frequency, fT = gm/(2π(Cgs+Cgd)) (2.8)

Where, gm =Transconductance of the device

Cgs = Gate to Source capacitance

Cgd=Gate to Drain Capacitance

Maximum Frequency of Oscillation fmax: fmax is defined as the frequency at

which GU of transistor drops to the unity. fmax is typically different from fT ,
because of addition to current gain, fmax takes into account the possibility of

29
voltage gain. Practically, to estimate fT, S-parameters are converted into the h-
parameters and current gain is plotted versus frequency. fmax is then estimated by
extrapolation of the measured unilateral power gain versus frequency.

2.6 Conclusion

In this chapter the HEMT devices and its background are discussed. The
device simulation tools and its physical model are also explained in detail. In the
coming chapters the design and analysis of various techniques in AlGaN/GaN
HEMT devices is discussed. The different techniques used in the design and
analysis are schottky source/drain contact technique, different high-k passivation
technique and field plate engineering Technique. The next chapter discusses the
schottky source/drain contact technique in AlGaN/GaN HEMT device for high
power applications.

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