Mechanism of AlGaAs/InGaAs pHEMT Nonlinear Response Under High-Power Microwave Radiation

With the development of microelectronic technology, the reliability of devices in a complex electromagnetic environment has become one of the greatest challenges in the semiconductor industry. On this basis, a phenomenon of nonlinear transient response is observed in high-power microwave (HPM)-radia...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of the Electron Devices Society 2020, Vol.8, p.731-737
Main Authors: Liu, Yu-Qian, Chai, Chang-Chun, Wu, Han, Zhang, Yu-Hang, Shi, Chun-Lei, Yang, Yin-Tang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aluminum gallium arsenides
Breakdown
Circuits
Electric breakdown
Extremely high frequencies
High power microwaves
High-power microwave (HPM)
Indium gallium arsenides
Interference
Logic gates
mechanism
MODFETs
Nonlinear response
pHEMT
PHEMTs
Saturation
Transient response
Transistors
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Summary:With the development of microelectronic technology, the reliability of devices in a complex electromagnetic environment has become one of the greatest challenges in the semiconductor industry. On this basis, a phenomenon of nonlinear transient response is observed in high-power microwave (HPM)-radiating AlGaAs/InGaAs pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistors (pHEMTs). This abnormal response is induced before the thermal failure, causing disturbances to the circuit. To understand this phenomenon, a detailed mechanism analysis is proposed. The analysis shows that the nonlinear response is initially associated with the 2DEG velocity saturation, then a breakdown process is induced by the tunneling and impact ionization combined effect. Within each radiation period, the channel current changes its direction twice under the influence of the HPM field. The nonlinear response current I_{d} is derived from the theoretical analysis. TCAD simulations demonstrate the saturation and breakdown process. Corresponding experiments are performed using a Ka-band low-noise amplifier (LNA) chip. The results support the theory well.
ISSN:2168-6734
2168-6734
DOI:10.1109/JEDS.2020.3008816