High Performance Mixed Signal and RF Circuits Enabled by the Direct Monolithic Heterogeneous Integration of GaN HEMTs and Si CMOS on a Silicon Substrate

Abstract

In this work we present recent results on the direct heterogeneous integration of GaN HEMTs and Si CMOS on a silicon substrate. GaN HEMTs whose DC and RF performance are comparable to GaN HEMTs on SiC substrates have been achieved. As a demonstration vehicle we designed and fabricated a GaN amplifier with pMOS gate bias control circuitry (a current mirror) and heterogeneous interconnects. This simple demonstration circuit is a building block for more advanced RF, mixed signal and power conditioning circuits, such as reconfigurable or linearized PAs with in-situ adaptive bias control, high power digital-to-analog converters (DACs), driver stages for on-wafer optoelectronics, and on-chip power distribution networks.