Demonstration of 16 THz V Johnson's figure-of-merit and 36 THz V <i>fmax·VBK</i> in ultrathin barrier AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with slant-field-plate T-gates

Abstract

In this work, ultrathin barrier (∼6 nm) AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) with in situ SiN gate dielectric and slant-field plate (SFP) T-gates were fabricated and analyzed. Since the proposed scheme of gate dielectric and SFP effectively suppresses the gate leakage and alleviates the peak electric field (E-field) around gate region, the maximum breakdown voltage (VBK) was improved to 92 V, which is 54 V higher than that of the conventional device. The fabricated ultrathin AlGaN/GaN HEMT with 60-nm SFP-T-gate exhibited the peak fT of 177 GHz and peak fmax of 393 GHz, yielding high figure-of-merits of fT · VBK = 16 THz V and fmax·VBK = 36 THz V. Moreover, load-pull measurements at 30 GHz reveal that these devices deliver output power density (Pout) of 4.6 W/mm at Vds = 20 V and high power-added efficiency up to 52.5% at Vds = 10 V. Essentially, the experimental results indicate that the employment of SFP and in situ SiN gate dielectric is an attractive approach to balance the breakdown and speed for millimeter wave devices.