Electron Velocity Enhancement in Laterally Scaled GaN DH-HEMTs With $f_{T}$ of 260 GHz

Abstract

In this letter, we report the first experimental observation of electron velocity enhancement by aggressive lateral scaling of GaN HEMTs. Through reduction of the source-drain distance down to 170 nm using <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">+</sup> -GaN ohmic regrowth, 45-nm gate AlN/GaN/Al <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0.08</sub> Ga <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0.92</sub> N HEMTs exhibited an extremely small on resistance of 0.44 Ω·mm , a high maximum drain current density of 2.3 A/mm, a high peak extrinsic transconductance of 905 mS/mm, and a record <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">fT</i> / <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">f</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">max</sub> of 260/394 GHz. Delay time analysis showed that the outstanding <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">fT</i> was mainly due to significantly reduced electron transit time at higher drain-source voltages resulting from suppressed drain delay and enhanced electron velocity in the laterally scaled GaN HEMTs.