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A 750-W AlGaN GaN HEMT Operating at 80 V For L - Band Applications
A 750-W AlGaN GaN HEMT Operating at 80 V For L - Band Applications
5, MAY 2018
Abstract— High operating voltage and high power are of 65 V [11]. In 2015, Integra Technologies Inc. reported an
important developing goals of GaN-based high-electron mobility UHF-band HEMT with a power of 350 W, a PAE of 75%,
transistor (HEMT) at present. In this letter, we demonstrated an operating voltage of up to 125 V [12]. In 2016, Wolfspeed
a GaN-based HEMT exhibiting a breakdown voltage of greater
than 300 V, an operating voltage of up to 80 V, an output power released a 900-W GaN HEMT operating at 50 V with an effi-
of up to 750 W, a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 80% and ciency of better than 65% [13]. In 2017, Integra Technologies
an associated power gain of 16.8 dB at 1.3 GHz. The device Inc. demonstrated an RF power transistor operating at 150 V
simultaneously realizes high voltage, high power, and high PAE, in L-band with a maximum power of 350 W and a PAE of
and is suitable for L-band high-power applications. about 60% [14]. Meanwhile, it also announced that they have
Index Terms— AlGaN/GaN, high-electron mobility transis- the GaN L-band transistor operating at 50 V with an RF
tor (HEMT), L-band. power of 1200 W and a PAE of 75% [15]. The reported
I. I NTRODUCTION GaN HEMTs in L-band cannot yet realize high power, high
operating voltage, and high PAE simultaneously. However,
G aN has been regarded as one of the most promising
materials for electronic devices due to the wide band gap
of 3.4 eV. The HEMT based on AlGaN/GaN heterostructure
the requirements for these performances in GaN microwave
devices are increasingly improved.
In this letter, a high-power GaN-on-SiC HEMT with high
has various advantages of high-concentration 2-D electron
operating voltage as well as high PAE was demonstrated for
gas (2DEG), high electron mobility, high frequency, and high
L-band applications. By using SiN passivation and optimal
power [1], [2]. The GaN-based microwave power devices and
field plate, not only the breakdown voltage was improved but
the related products have broad application prospects in the
also the current collapse at high drain voltage was suppressed.
field of radar and communication [3]–[5].
The fabricated HEMT can operate at 1.3 GHz with a voltage
Recently, the research about the GaN microwave devices
of 80 V, a power of 750 W, and a PAE of 80%.
in the bands of L, S, C, X, and Ka were hot topics [5]–[9].
In 2006, Eudyna Devices Inc. reported a 500-W GaN-based
HEMT for L-band applications with a gain of 17.8 dB, II. D EVICE S TRUCTURE AND FABRICATION
an drain efficiency of 49%, and an operating voltage
Fig. 1(a) shows the schematic cross-sectional view of
of 65 V [6]. In 2007, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation presented
the high-power AlGaN/GaN-on-SiC HEMT. The device con-
a GaN-based HEMT operating at C-band [10]. In 2014, an
sists of field plate (F), plasma-enhanced chemical vapor
X-band 8.5–10-GHz power amplifier was demonstrated, with
deposition (PE-CVD) SiN passivation layer, inductively
an internal power of 310 W, a power-added efficiency (PAE)
coupled-plasma chemical vapor deposition (ICP-CVD) SiN
of 37%, a gain of 10.2 dB, and an operating voltage
passivation layer, GaN capping layer, AlGaN barrier layer,
Manuscript received November 13, 2017; revised January 1, 2018; accepted AlN interlayers, GaN buffer layer, SiC substrate, and the
February 14, 2018. Date of publication March 28, 2018; date of current source (S), gate (G), and drain (D) contacts. To improve the
version May 8, 2018. This work was supported in part by MOST under
Grant 2017YFA0205800 and in part by NSFC under Grant 61450110442 and breakdown voltage, the gate-close-to-source structure, source
Grant 61307066. (Corresponding author: Tong Zhang.) field plate, and gate field plate were utilized in the HEMT.
L.-J. Zhang and X.-C. Fu are with the School of Electronic Science and In addition, the T-shaped gate with sloping sides was also
Engineering, Key Laboratory of Micro-Inertial Instrument and Advanced Nav-
igation Technology, Ministry of Education, and Joint International Research employed to improve the breakdown voltage.
Laboratory of Information Display and Visualization, Southeast University, To realize the high-power HEMT, the GaN capping layer,
Nanjing 210096, China, and also with the Hebei Semiconductor Research AlGaN barrier layer, AlN interlayers and GaN buffer layer
Institute, Shijiazhuang 050051, China.
J.-H. Mo, Y.-X. Cui, and X.-J. Li are with the Hebei Semiconductor doped with Fe were grown by MOCVD on 3-in SiC wafer,
Research Institute, Shijiazhuang 050051, China. respectively. The thickness of lower AlN layer, GaN buffer
G. Qian and T. Zhang are with the School of Electronic Science and layer, upper AlN interlayer, AlGaN barrier layer, and GaN
Engineering, Key Laboratory of Micro-Inertial Instrument and Advanced Nav-
igation Technology, Ministry of Education, and Joint International Research capping layer are 40 nm, 2 μm, 2 nm, 21 nm, and 3 nm,
Laboratory of Information Display and Visualization, Southeast University, respectively. To obtain the optimal 2DEG concentrations
Nanjing 210096, China (e-mail: tzhang@seu.edu.cn). and mobility, the Al mole fraction of AlGaN was con-
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. trolled to be about 22%. By optimizing the grow conditions,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2018.2813878 GaN-based epitaxial wafers with a 2DEG sheet carrier density
1531-1309 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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ZHANG et al.: 750-W AlGaN/GaN HEMT OPERATING AT 80 V 441
Authorized licensed use limited to: National Chiao Tung Univ.. Downloaded on August 07,2021 at 17:56:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
442 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 28, NO. 5, MAY 2018
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