Polarization Engineering of AlGaN/GaN HEMT With Graded InGaN Sub-Channel for High-Linearity X-Band Applications

Abstract

We report on the power and linearity performance of metal-organic chemical vapor deposition grown polarization-engineered novel structure that combines the AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistor with a graded InGaN sub-channel layer. The fabricated transistors with composite two-dimensional(2D) and three-dimensional(3D) electron channels showed nearly flat transconductance and power gain profiles. The maximum f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> and f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">max</sub> values of 18 GHz and 38 GHz were measured for 0.7-μm gate-length transistors. Load-pull measurement at 10 GHz revealed a maximum output power of 2.2 W/mm. Two-tone measurement at 10 GHz showed an excellent OIP3 of 38 dBm for 150-μm device width and a corresponding linearity figure of merit OIP3/P <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DC</sub> of 9.7 dB. These results suggest that InGaN-based composite 2D-3D channel transistors could be useful for high-frequency applications requiring high linearity.