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Chin. Phys. B, 2013, Vol. 22(9): 097303    DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/22/9/097303
CONDENSED MATTER: ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE, ELECTRICAL, MAGNETIC, AND OPTICAL PROPERTIES Prev   Next  

Field plate structural optimization for enhancing the power gain of GaN-based HEMTs

Zhang Kai (张凯)a, Cao Meng-Yi (曹梦逸)a, Lei Xiao-Yi (雷晓艺)a, Zhao Sheng-Lei (赵胜雷)a, Yang Li-Yuan (杨丽媛)a, Zheng Xue-Feng (郑雪峰)a, Ma Xiao-Hua (马晓华)a b, Hao Yue (郝跃)a
a Key Laboratory for Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Materials and Devices, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China;
b School of Technical Physics, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China
Abstract  A novel source-connected field plate structure, featuring the same photolithography mask as the gate electrode, is proposed as an improvement over the conventional field plate (FP) techniques to enhance the frequency performance in GaN-based HEMTs. The influences of the field plate on frequency and breakdown performance are investigated simultaneously by using a two-dimensional physics-based simulation. Compared with the conventional T-gate structures with a field plate length of 1.2 μm, this field plate structure can induce the small signal power gain at 10 GHz to increase by 5-9.5 dB, which depends on the distance between source FP and dramatically shortened gate FP. This technique minimizes the parasitic capacitances, especially the gate-to-drain capacitance, showing a substantial potential for millimeter-wave, high power applications.
Keywords:  GaN-based HEMTs      breakdown characteristics      field plates      power gain  
Received:  05 February 2013      Revised:  26 March 2013      Accepted manuscript online: 
PACS:  73.40.Kp (III-V semiconductor-to-semiconductor contacts, p-n junctions, and heterojunctions)  
  73.61.Ey (III-V semiconductors)  
  85.30.Tv (Field effect devices)  
Fund: Project supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University, China (Grant No. NCET-12-0915), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61106106), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (Grant No. K5051225013).
Corresponding Authors:  Ma Xiao-Hua     E-mail:  xhma@xidian.edu.cn

Cite this article: 

Zhang Kai (张凯), Cao Meng-Yi (曹梦逸), Lei Xiao-Yi (雷晓艺), Zhao Sheng-Lei (赵胜雷), Yang Li-Yuan (杨丽媛), Zheng Xue-Feng (郑雪峰), Ma Xiao-Hua (马晓华), Hao Yue (郝跃) Field plate structural optimization for enhancing the power gain of GaN-based HEMTs 2013 Chin. Phys. B 22 097303

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