INTRODUCTION TO MICROWAVE TRANSISTORS

Mohammad Sadegh Dadash

Fall 2009
TRANSISTORS VS. VACUUM TUBES

Advantages

 Small size and minimal weight

 Highly automated manufacturing processes

 Greater energy efficiency

 Higher reliability

 Availablity of complementary devices

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TRANSISTORS VS. VACUUM TUBES

Limitations

 Lower operating voltage of transistors

 High power, high frequency operation is better

achieved in vacuum tubes

 A higher degree of amplification linearity can be

achieved in electron tubes
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MICROWAVE TRANSISTOR

 The microwave transistor is a nonlinear device, and its

principle of operation is similar to that of the low-frequency
device.
 Major concerns for a microwave transistor:
 transit time
 parasitic capacitance, and resistance

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MICROWAVE TRANSISTOR

 Bipolar transistor
Bipolar junction transistor (BJT)
Heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT)

 Unipolar transistor
Metal oxide field effect transistor (MOSFET )
Metal semiconductor field effect transistor (MESFET)
High electron mobility transistor (HEMT)

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BJTS

 Two back-to-back intimately coupled p-n junctions.

 Current is conveyed by slow process of diffusion

 Transite time ( ) 6
BJTS
 Parasitic resistances(Rb, Re, Rc) and parasitic capacitances
(Cjc, Cje, Cjs)

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BJTS

 Frequency of transition (ft)

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BJTS
 Major effort is focused on minimizing parasitic

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BJTS
 Power-frequency limitations inherent in the transistors

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BJTS

 NPN bipolar transistors

µn = 1500 cm2/V. s
µp = 450 cm2/V. s

 Silicon BJTs dominate for frequency range below S band

(about 3 GHz).

 The Si bipolar transistor is inexpensive, durable,

integrative.

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BJTS
BFP620F SD1728

NPN Silicon NPN Silicon RF

Type
Germanium Transistor

Application High gain low noise High power applications

21 dB 15dB
Gain
@ 1.8 GHz @13.56MHz

110 23
Current gain
IC = 50 mA, IC = 10 A,
(hfe) VCE = 1.5 V VCE = 6 V

Company Infineon STMicroelectronics

Price 12
1.57 $ 130.8 $
HBTS

 HBT is an improvement of the BJT

 Main difference
Use of different semiconductor materials for the emitter and base
regions

 Lattice constants of two semiconductor materials should be

matched.

a = 5.646 A for Ge a = 5.653 for GaAs

matched to within 1%
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HBTS
 When an n -Ge and a p -GaAs are isolated

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HBTS
 When the two materials are jointed together

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HBTS
 The effect is to limit the injection of holes from the base into the
emitter region

 This allows a high doping density to be used in the base

 A high base doping results in a small base resistance and a low

emitter doping reduces the base emitter junction capacitance
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HBTS
 HBT structure

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HBTS
Advantages

 Lower forward transit time

 Much lower base resistance
 The ability to turn off devices with a small base voltage
change.

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HBTS

Application

 Modern ultrafast circuits, mostly radio-frequency (RF)

systems

 Applications requiring a high power efficiency, such as

power amplifiers in cellular phones.

 High-reliability applications, such as laser drivers.

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 BREAKTHROUGH
 Feng and Hafez at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, developed a transistor less
than half a millionth of a metre long, with a
maximum operating speed of 604 GHz.

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MOSFETS
 Distinguishing feature
presence of an insulator between the gate and the remainder
of the device.

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MOSFETS
 Distributed nature of gate

 Maximum operating frequency of the MOSFET scales as

1/L^2
 The time it takes the carriers to move from drain to source
 The mobility of the carriers is proportional to the electric field
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strength.
MOSFETS
 Parasitic capacitances
 Internal capacitance
 External capacitance

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MOSFETS
 The distributed gate resistance
 Discounting the gate resistance causes nonoptimal power matching
source impedances.
 Discounting the gate resistance causes an underestimation of the
noise figure of the transistor.
 Discounting the gate resistance causes an overestimation of the
MOSFET’s available power gain and maximum frequency.

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MOSFETS
Advantage
 The MOSFET’s mature fabrication technology

 Its high integration levels

 Its capability for low voltage operation

Disadvantage
 High resistive channels
 Widening the channel causes the increase of capacitance

 Lower transconductance in comparison to BJTs

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 MOSFETS

 MOSFET technology has the performance levels

necessary to operate in the 900 MHz to 2.4 GHz
 Important for existing cellular and wireless network
applications

 Future generations of MOSFET

 Scaled below the 100 nm gate length
 Operate beyond 5 GHz

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 NE5511279A NE552R479A
UHF BAND
Type RF POWER SILICON MOS Silicon MOSFET
FET

Frequency range 0.9 GHz 2.45 GHz

Gain 15 dB 11 dB

Dimension 5.7 x 5.7 x 1.1 mm 5.7 x 5.7 x 1.1 mm

Pout 40 dBm 26 dBm

Transconductance 2.3 S 0.4 S

California Eastern California Eastern

Company
Labs Labs
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MESFETS
 Using of metal-semiconductor Schottky-barrier diode

 The current in the channel causes a voltage drop along its length
As a result, a charge-depletion region is set up in the channel

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MESFETS
Why Schottky Barrier Diode?

 Higher system efficiency

voltage drop for normal diode = 0.7-1.7 volt
voltage drop for schottky diode = 0.15-0.45 volt

 Lower reverse recovery time

For normal diode ~ 100 nsec
For schottkey diode almost nothing

 Lower resistance devices are often possible

 Greatly simplified fabrication 29

MESFETS

Limitations

 Relatively low reverse voltage (~ 50 v)

 Relatively high reverse leakage current

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MESFETS

Benefits of GaAs MESFET over Si MESFET

 Higher electron mobility

 Higher electric field

 Greater output power

 Lower noise figure, accounted for by its higher

electron mobility

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THE EQUIVALENT MODEL

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MESFETS

 Production MESFETs are operated up to approximately

30 GHz.
 The maximum record of cutoff frequency, for GaAs
MESFETs reached 168 GHz.

Applications

 Military communications
 Military radar devices
 Commercial optoelectronics
 Satellite communications 33
MESFETS
MwT- 11 CRF24010D

High Power, High SiC RF Power

Type Linearity GaAs FET MESFET

Up to 5 GHz
Frequency range 12 GHz
Operation

Gain 7 dB 15 dB

Pout 28 dBm 40 dBm

Transconductance 290 mS 140 mS

Company MwT CREE

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HEMTS
 Also known as heterostructure FETs
 Incorporating a junction between two materials with different
band gaps as the channel instead of a doped region

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HEMTS
 In general, electrons are slowed down through collisions with the
impurities (dopants) used to generate them in the first place.

 HEMTs avoid this through the use of high mobility electrons

generated using the junction of a highly-doped wide-band gap n-
type donor and a non-doped narrow-band gap layer.

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HEMTS

 HEMTs have exhibited lower noise figure and higher

gain at microwave frequencies up to 70 GHz

 The switching speed of a HEMT is about three times

as fast as that of a GaAs MESFET

 Power dissipation reported at about 100 pW

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HEMTS

 Excellent candidates for millimeter-wave analog

applications and high-speed digital applications

 Excellent for application where high gain and low

noise at high frequencies are required

 Cellular telecommunications
 Direct broadcast receivers
 Electronic warfare systems such as radar and for
radio astronomy

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HEMTS

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