Guan He, Shen Guiyu, Liu Shibin, Jiang Chengyu, Wu Jingbo
School of Microelectronics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710129, China.
School of Electronics and Information, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710129, China.
Micromachines (Basel). 2023 Jan 9;14(1):168. doi: 10.3390/mi14010168.
The effects of barrier layer thickness, Al component of barrier layer, and passivation layer thickness of high-resistance Si (111)-based AlGaN/GaN heterojunction epitaxy on the knee-point voltage (), saturation current density (), and cut-off frequency () of its high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) are simulated and analyzed. A novel optimization factor is proposed by considering the various performance parameters of the device to reduce the and improve the on the premise of ensuring the . Based on this factor, the optimized AlGaN/GaN epitaxial structure was designed with a barrier layer thickness of 20 nm, an Al component in the barrier layer of 25%, and a SiN passivation layer of 6 nm. By simulation, when the gate voltage V is 0 V, the designed device with a gate length of 0.15 μm, gate-source spacing of 0.5 μm, and gate-drain spacing of 1 μm presents a high of 750 mA/mm and a low of 2.0 V and presents and maximum frequency () as high as 110 GHz and 220 GHz, respectively. The designed device was fabricated and tested to verify the simulation results. We demonstrated the optimization factor can provide an effective design method for follow-up high-frequency and low-voltage applications of GaN devices.
模拟并分析了基于高电阻Si(111)的AlGaN/GaN异质结外延的势垒层厚度、势垒层Al组分以及钝化层厚度对其高电子迁移率晶体管(HEMT)的拐点电压(Vknee)、饱和电流密度(Isat)和截止频率(fT)的影响。通过考虑器件的各种性能参数,提出了一种新颖的优化因子,以在确保fT的前提下降低Vknee并提高Isat。基于该因子,设计了优化的AlGaN/GaN外延结构,势垒层厚度为20 nm,势垒层中的Al组分为25%,SiN钝化层为6 nm。通过模拟,当栅极电压V为0 V时,所设计的栅极长度为0.15 μm、栅源间距为0.5 μm、栅漏间距为1 μm的器件呈现出750 mA/mm的高Isat和2.0 V的低Vknee,并且fT和最高频率(fmax)分别高达110 GHz和220 GHz。制造并测试了所设计的器件以验证模拟结果。我们证明了该优化因子可为后续GaN器件的高频和低压应用提供有效的设计方法。