TR2024-010

Fermi-Level Pinning Effect in Gate Region: A Case Study of Multi-Metal Gated AlGaN/GaN HEMT for High RF Linearity

    •  Hossain, T., sikder, B., Azad, M.T., Xie, Q., Yuan, M., Yagyu, E., Teo, K.H., Palacios, T., Chowdhury, N., "Fermi-Level Pinning Effect in Gate Region: A Case Study of Multi-Metal Gated AlGaN/GaN HEMT for High RF Linearity", IEEE Electron Devices Technology & Manufacturing Conference, February 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-010 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Hossain2024feb,
      • author = {Hossain, Toiyob and sikder, Bejoy and Azad, Md.Tasnim and Xie, Qingyun and Yuan, Mengyang and Yagyu, Eiji and Teo, Koon Hoo and Palacios, Tomas and Chowdhury, Nadim},
      • title = {Fermi-Level Pinning Effect in Gate Region: A Case Study of Multi-Metal Gated AlGaN/GaN HEMT for High RF Linearity},
      • booktitle = {IEEE Electron Devices Technology & Manufacturing Conference},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = feb,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-010}
      • }
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  • Research Area:

    Electronic and Photonic Devices

Abstract:

This work investigates the robustness of AlGaN/GaN multi- metal gated (MMG) HEMT architecture for gm3 optimization and linearity improvement in the presence of Fermi-Level pinning. Through Technology Computer-Aided Design (TCAD), Compact modeling and Load-Pull simulations, it is shown that despite incorporating FLP, employing MMG scheme improves device level gm3-suppression leading to an improvement in OIP3/Pdc and IMD3. Remarkably, OIP3/Pdc of 18.9 dB is obtained considering an FLP factor of 0.43, which is 10.7 dB improvement than the conventional planar HEMT. A comparative analysis on output power back-off (OBO) for conventional and MMG HEMT with different FLP factors establishes MMG as a robust architecture to FLP, and therefore a practical method to enhance linearity of GaN power amplifiers.