• 한국군사과학기술학회지
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• 제12권4호
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• pp.483-490
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• 2009

In this paper, a novel low-damage silicon nitride passivation for 100nm InAlAs/InGaAs MHEMTs has been developed using remote ICPCVD. The silicon nitride deposited by ICPCVD showed higher quality, higher density, and lower hydrogen concentration than those of silicon nitride deposited by PECVD. In particular, we successfully minimized the plasma damage by separating the silicon nitride deposition region remotely from ICP generation region, typically with distance of 34cm. The silicon nitride passivation with remote ICPCVD has been successfully demonstrated on GaAs MHEMTs with minimized damage. The passivated devices showed considerable improvement in DC characteristics and also exhibited excellent RF characteristics($f_T$of 200GHz).The devices with remote ICPCVD passivation of 50nm silicon nitride exhibited 22% improvement(535mS/mm to 654mS/mm) of a maximum extrinsic transconductance($g_{m.max}$) and 20% improvement(551mA/mm to 662mA/mm) of a maximum saturation drain current ($I_{DS.max}$) compared to those of unpassivated ones, respectively. The results achieved in this work demonstrate that remote ICPCVD is a suitable candidate for the next-generation MHEMT passivation technique.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.73-77
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• 2001

We studied the fabrication of GaAs-based pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistors(PHEMT`s) for the purpose of millimeter- wave applications. To fabricate the high performance GaAs-based PHEMT`s, we performed the simulation to analyze the designed epitaxial-structures. Each unit processes, such as 0.1 m$\mu$$\Gamma$-gate lithography, silicon nitride passivation and air-bridge process were developed to achieve high performance device characteristics. The DC characteristics of the PHEMT`s were measured at a 70 $\mu$m unit gate width of 2 gate fingers, and showed a good pinch-off property ($V_p$= -1.75 V) and a drain-source saturation current density ($I_{dss}$) of 450 mA/mm. Maximum extrinsic transconductance $(g_m)$ was 363.6 mS/mm at $V_{gs}$ = -0.7 V, $V_{ds}$ = 1.5 V, and $I_{ds}$ =0.5 $I_{dss}$. The RF measurements were performed in the frequency range of 1.0~50 GHz. For this measurement, the drain and gate voltage were 1.5 V and -0.7 V, respectively. At 50 GHz, 9.2 dB of maximum stable gain (MSG) and 3.2 dB of $S_{21}$ gain were obtained, respectively. A current gain cut-off frequency $(f_T)$ of 106 GHz and a maximum frequency of oscillation $(f_{max})$ of 160 GHz were achieved from the fabricated PHEMT\\`s of 0.1 m$\mu$ gate length.h.