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Vol. 36, No. 4 Journal of Semiconductors April 2015

Design and simulation of a novel GaN based resonant tunneling high electron
mobility transistor on a silicon substrate
Subhra Chowdhury1; Ž , Swarnabha Chattaraj2 , and Dhrubes Biswas1; 2
1 Advanced Technology Development Center, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur-721302, West Bengal, India
2 Electronicsand Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur-721302, West
Bengal, India

Abstract: For the first time, we have introduced a novel GaN based resonant tunneling high electron mobility
transistor (RTHEMT) on a silicon substrate. A monolithically integrated GaN based inverted high electron mobility
transistor (HEMT) and a resonant tunneling diode (RTD) are designed and simulated using the ATLAS simulator
and MATLAB in this study. The 10% Al composition in the barrier layer of the GaN based RTD structure provides a
peak-to-valley current ratio of 2.66 which controls the GaN based HEMT performance. Thus the results indicate an
improvement in the current–voltage characteristics of the RTHEMT by controlling the gate voltage in this structure.
The introduction of silicon as a substrate is a unique step taken by us for this type of RTHEMT structure.

Key words: RTD; HEMT; RTHEMT; current–voltage characteristics

DOI: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/4/044001 EEACC: 2570

attractive due to their extensive use in the fields of high fre-

1. Introduction
Over the last two decades, high performance device di-
mensions have been shrinking from the micrometer to the sub-
micrometer level and below, decreasing power consumption.
Quantum effects such as resonant tunneling effects occur due
to the dimension reduction of devices down to a few nanome-
ters. Thus the resonant tunneling diode (RTD) is gaining huge
interest because of its ability to reduce circuit complexityŒ1 3
and provide the same functionality as state-of-the-art commer-
cial process technologies such as complementary metal oxide
semiconductors (CMOSs). The RTD is a quantum transport de-
vice which produces negative differential resistance (NDR) at
room temperature as well as a high peak-to-valley current ra-
tio (PVCR) with very small capacitance. It is very important
in the field of ultra-high speed (1.5 ps)Œ4 , ultra-high frequency
(up to 712 GHz) applicationsŒ5 . The RTD is a very promis-
ing candidate in the field of digital and analog circuits such as
multi-state memoriesŒ6 and multi-function logic circuitsŒ7; 8 .
Since the RTD is a two terminal device, in order to achieve
a simple high speed circuit that consumes less power, this two-
terminal RTD is integrated with a three terminal high electron
mobility transistor (HEMT)Œ9 11 . All the advantages of both
devices are combined through the integration. The RTHEMT
device is capable of producing very fast switching due to the
NDR of the RTD and it consumes less power due to the gain
and high input/output isolation provided by the transistor.
Previously, various III–V material based RTD-HEMT
structures have been grown and analyzed for various appli-
cationsŒ12 14 . We are introducing III-nitride based materials
for this RTHEMT structure because of their unique proper-
ties such as a wide bandgap, large band gap discontinuityŒ15 ,
high thermal stability and high saturation electron velocity. III-
nitride based materials for RTHEMT device structures are very
quency applicationsŒ16 , ultra-speed wireless communications,
spectroscopy and imaging.
2. Device structure
Our RTHEMT structure is considered to be monolithi-
cally grown, where the RTD structure is located only above
the HEMT structure, specifically on the source region. Silicon
is taken as the substrate for the structure. The inverted HEMT
consist of an AlGaN barrier (20% Al), and a source, drain
and gate which are made of GaN as shown in Figure 1. The
RTD consists of an emitter, active region and collector. The
active region is composed of an AlGaN (10% Al) barrier/GaN
well/AlGaN (10% Al) barrier. The active region is surrounded
by a spacer layer; the emitter side spacer layer thickness is
21 nm and the collector side spacer layer thickness is 23 nm.
The emitter and collector layers are heavily doped with a dop-
ing concentration of 1  1018 (n-type). The thickness of the
emitter and collector are 62 nm and 60 nm, respectively. The
RTD structure as shown in Figure 1 is etched up to its collec-
tor layer on the source of the HEMT structure. The detailed
III-nitride based RTHEMT structure is described in Table 1.
3. Simulation results
3.1. The AlGaN/GaN HEMT simulation
The HEMT structure as shown in Figure 1 is simulated us-
ing the ATLAS simulator. All the region widths are the same
as described in Table 1. Due to lattice mismatch at the inter-
face of AlGaN and GaN, strain is induced which results in a
piezoelectric polarization field. The piezoelectric polarization
is included for HEMT by using POLARIZATION model and
using the CALC.STRAIN statement, so that ATLAS automat-

† Corresponding author. Email: subhra1109@gmail.com

Received 17 August 2014, revised manuscript received 24 November 2014 © 2015 Chinese Institute of Electronics

044001-1
J. Semicond. 2015, 36(4) Subhra Chowdhury et al.

Figure 1. (a) The AlGaN/GaN based inverted HEMT structure. (b) The AlGaN/GaN based RTD structure.

Table 1. The detailed structure of the RTHEMT.

Region Material Doping Thickness (nm)
Emitter GaN 1018 cm 3 (n-type) 62
Spacer GaN — 21
Barrier Al0:1 Ga0:9 N — 2
Well GaN — 2
Barrier Al0:1 Ga0:9 N — 2
Spacer GaN — 23
Collector GaN 1018 cm 3 (n-type) 60
Source GaN 1018 cm 3 (n-type) 65
Drain GaN 1018 cm 3 (n-type) 65
Gate GaN — —
Barrier Al0:2 Ga0:9 N — 170
Substrate Silicon — —

ically calculates the strain in the material interface. The simu-

lated AlGaN/GaN inverted HEMT structure is shown in Figure
2. The simulation of the HEMT structure is followed by finding
the input and output characteristics which are shown in Figures
3(a) and 3(b). The results indicate that this is an enhancement
type MODFET and the threshold value that is extracted from
the analysis is close to 2:5 V.

3.2. The AlGaN/GaN RTD simulation

The AlGaN/GaN based RTD structure that is shown in
Figure 1 is simulated using the ATLAS simulator. All the re-
gion widths of this RTD structure as used in the simulation
are the same as described in Table 1. Piezoelectric polariza-
tion at the AlGaN–GaN interface affects the current–voltage
(I –V ) characteristics of this type of structure. To minimize
the polarization effect at the heterointerface, we have used an
Figure 2. The simulated GaN/AlGaN inverted HEMT structure.
AlGaN barrier with an Al composition of 10%. But a mini-
mum piezoelectric polarization charge still is automatically in-
troduced at the heterointerface which results in the band bend- with the Schrödinger–Poisson solver. This is why the INTER-
ing at the junction of the AlGaN/GaN RTD as shown in Fig- FACE statement is used to insert the interface charges due
ure 4(a). For the GaN RTD, there is the problem of using the to polarization. The conduction band alignment ratio is set to
polarization model in ATLAS. The non-equilibrium Green’s 0.8. The model used is n.negf_pl1d (n-type, one-dimensional,
function model takes the quantum simulator which is tagged non-equilibrium Green’s function). The solution method is

044001-2
J. Semicond. 2015, 36(4)
Figure 3. (a) The GaN/AlGaN inverted HEMT input characteristics. (b) The GaN/AlGaN inverted HEMT output characteristics.
Figure 4. (a) Band bending in the GaN/AlGaN RTD due to the polarization charge. (b) The I –V plot for the GaN/AlGaN RTD structure.
Schrödinger–Poisson.
The I –V characteristics of the RTD structure are shown in
Figure 4(b). This simulated GaN based RTD provides a peak
current (Ipeak / of 6.16  10 4 A at 1.34 V and a valley cur-
rent (Ivalley / of 2.31  10 4 A. As a result a PVCR of 2.66 is
achieved.
3.3. Integration of the GaN based RTD and HEMT
The combined structural schematic in Figure 5(a) repre-
sents the monolithic integrated parallel connection between
the AlGaN/GaN inverted HEMT (Figure 1(a)) and the Al-
GaN/GaN/GaN based RTD (Figure 1(b)). The calculated oper-
ating principle of the integrated parallel connection of the RTD
with the HEMT is shown in the output characteristics in Figure
5(b). Here the current passing through the RTD (IRTD / and the
HEMT (IHEMT / gives the total drain current (ID /. The gate to
source voltage (VGS / can alter the HEMT current IHEMT and
can thus modulate the total drain current ID . This results in the
control of the peak current of the integrated device, especially
of the integrated RTD by VGS . In the schematic in Figure 5(a),
VGS is applied in terminal 3 and the application of voltage in
terminal 2 causes a flow of current in terminal 1 which is shown
in Figure 5(b).
When the RTD and the HEMT are combined their
I –V characteristics nearly match. But there is the complica-
044001-3
Subhra Chowdhury et al.
tion of simulating both devices together on the same substrate.
The RTD simulation takes place using the quantum module
of BLAZE, and the solution method followed is Schrödinger–
Poisson while the HEMT simulation is performed using the
Gummel–Newton method. Unfortunately, these two methods
cannot work together. To avoid this complication, the two de-
vices are simulated separately, and then their I –V characteris-
tics are joined together using MATLAB. The RTD and HEMT
parts cannot be simulated together due to the requirement of the
different models for the two parts. Hence, combining the I –V
characteristics using MATLAB is the only viable option. Suffi-
cient care has been taken to make sure that, although simulated
differently, the two parts are compatible in terms of geometry
and material, so that a real life integration is possible. Also, the
peak current of the RTD with a 10% Al composition and a po-
larization charge of 1  1012 cm 2 is 1.82  10 3 A, while
the saturation current for the HEMT with a width of 1 m is
2  10 5 A. This mismatch in the order of the current can be
removed by increasing the width of the HEMT to 10 m. This
is a numerical process of combining these two structures by
MATLAB, only because of the drawbacks of running the two
separate methods for the RTD (Schrödinger–Poisson) and the
HEMT (Gummel–Newton) together in SILVACO. Code writ-
ing and structural investigation of both the HEMT and RTD
structures in the SILVACO simulation provide the results in
Figures 3(b) and 4(b). The numerical values of these graphs are
J. Semicond. 2015, 36(4)
Figure 5. (a) A combined schematic of the GaN based RTD and the GaN based inverted HEMT and RTD. (b) The I –V output characteristics
of the GaN based RTHEMT device for different constant values of gate voltage.
extracted and entered in MATLAB. In MATLAB, by varying
the gate voltage values in terminal 3 and changing the voltage
in terminal 2 in the range of 0 to 5.5 V, the variation in the total
drain current is observed and plotted in the graph as shown in
Figure 5(b).
4. Conclusion
In this research, we have successfully designed and sim-
ulated both a GaN based RTD and a AlGaN/GaN inverted
HEMT structure using the ATLAS SILVACO simulator, fol-
lowed by numerical graph value extractions and integration
in MATLAB to find the output characteristics of our novel
RTHEMT structure. The results indicate the successful real-
ization of the three terminal III-nitride based RTHEMT struc-
ture on a silicon substrate. Finally, it can be concluded that the
improved PVCR (2.66) of the GaN based RTD results in an en-
hancement of the RTHEMT performance by varying the gate
voltage in the whole structure.
Acknowledgement
The authors of IIT Kharagpur would like to acknowledge
ENS Project, Department of Electronics and Information Tech-
nology (DeitY) Government of India for project funding.
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